Recent Solar Flare Could Disrupt Communications

w98 writes "CNN has reported that the 4th largest solar flare in the last 15 years may disrupt communications. "Significant solar eruptions are possible in the coming days and there could be disruptions in spacecraft operations, electric power systems, high frequency communications and low-frequency navigation systems," says the article."

Comments

SpaceWeather.

[hot_Karls_bad_cavern]

Here you go.

NOAA Article

[Gadgetfreak]

NOAA also has an article, with pictures and a movie, too.

Re:Northern lights?

[jeffmeden]

If you were on the spaceweather.com mailing list... You would know that the CME was from the sun's eastern limb and unlikely to produce aurora borealis for you to see (since you're at 56N), but since its an extremely active sunspot it could produce ejections in a few days that will hit the earth delivering some good auroras to watch.

BOFH Excuse Generator

[pete-classic]

BOFHs everywhere rejoice!

-Peter

Super Flare - IMAX-Does anyone remember SolarMax?

[Piewalker]

Does anyone remember in the IMAX documentary Solarmax where a super solar flare is mentioned? If I remember correctly, a super-duper solar flare is long overdue, and it has the potential of wiping out our entire satellite fleet. Also, here you can find a more detailed account of the recent solar flare than the AP article that appears on CNN: http://space.com/scienceastronomy/050908_solar_fla re.html

Solar activity increase and cycles

[SysKoll]

The last solar maximum was in 2001, and the next one is in 2013. However, that doesn't mean solar activity is perfectly regular and predictable. There is a very nice article showing that the sun actually contracts and dilates with a period that is still not well known.

We also know that the 17th century observations of the sun showed very few spots, whereas today spots are quite numerous. That's another variability.

Finally, several scientific papers suggest that solar activity variations have a major effect on the climate, much higher than was previously thought. There is a 208-year cycle that generated drought in South America during recent history, and these solar-forced droughts killed the Maya empire among other victims.

References: "A Variable Sun and the Maya Collapse", Kerr, Science, Vol 292, Issue 5520, 1293 , 18 May 2001 and Solar Forcing of Drought Frequency in the Maya Lowlands, Hodell, Science, Vol 292, Issue 5520, 1367-1370 , 18 May 2001.

So the sun most probably holds the key to long-term climate changes. We need more studies, because obviously, after a few decades of space observations, we don't know enough about cycles that last centuries.

Being alert for a Solar Flare HOWTO

[nherm]

• Download & install gkrellm
• Download & install Gkrellkam plugin (it's for getting images from webcams).
• Set up the gkrellkam plugin to get the image from http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/c3/10 24/latest.gif, which is a LASCO instrument at SOHO (which we are turning into the world's most expensive webcam IMHO).
• Also, set the number of second per update at 3600, so your image will update every hour (I don't know exactly the update times at soho website, I think 1 hour is ok)
• Stay alert for some twisted structure like this

I have four gkrellkam panels, one for watching sunspots, another for coronal holes (currently in "bake-out"), another for the auroral oval and the above one. The links for those images are:

sunspots

coronal holes

Auroral oval (replace "pmapS.gif" to "pmapN.gif" for the northern hemisphere)

Take a look to the SOHO website (lastest images->near realtime images) for more images... sadly the SOHO now is in a kind of blind point, so many of them are marked as "CCD Bakeout". Maybe it will be back online in a few weeks.

Of course you can use gkrellkam for a lot of other purposes, like getting weather satellite images... oh, and getting images from a ordinary webcam ;)