Approaching Solar Storm Forces ISS to Take Cover

vichyschwa writes "A Coronal Mass Ejection resulting from an X3 Solar Flare earlier today is forcing the ISS and Shuttle astronauts to take cover and may result in communication disruptions. Last week, the same sunspot generated what astronomers described as a rarely imaged solar tsunami. The activity began with an X9 flare Dec. 5. According to Spaceweather.com, "satellites may experience some glitches and reboots, but astronauts are in no danger." However, the astronauts were ordered to a protective area of the space station as a precaution."

Comments

Why would they take cover?

[Anonymous Coward]

When they can get cool powers like the Fantastic Four?

Re:Why would they take cover?

[Samah]

Hell, anything that gives me a tightly-fitted-lycra-suit-clad Jessica Alba is alright in my books :)

X2 vs X9

[andphi]

I was confused by this, so I looked it up.

From the Wikipedia article on Solar Flares: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Flare

Solar flares are classified as A, B, C, M or X according to the peak flux (in watts per square meter, W/m2) of 100 to 800 picometer X-rays near Earth, as measured on the GOES spacecraft. Each class has a peak flux ten times greater than the preceding one, with X class flares having a peak flux of order 10-4 W/m2. Within a class there is a linear scale from 1 to 9, so an X2 flare is twice as powerful as an X1 flare, and is four times more powerful than an M5 flare. The more powerful M and X class flares are often associated with a variety of effects on the near-Earth space environment. Although the GOES classification is commonly used to indicate the size of a flare, it is only one measure.

Take Cover?

[Kenshin]

"A Coronal Mass Ejection resulting from an X3 Solar Flare earlier today [CC] is forcing the ISS and Shuttle astronauts to take cover..."

I may be reading something wrong, or just may not know the exact details, but how exactly would the ISS "take cover"? Aside from the orbital path around the earth, there's little to hide under up there.

Re:Take Cover?

[Unholy_Kingfish]

One of the modules of the ISS is hardened against just this type of event. All of the modules have radiation protection, but this class of flare exceeds the safety limits of the those modules.

Think of it as a storm cellar in space.

BOFH - Solar Flares

[ServerIrv]

It's friday, so I get into work early, before lunch even. The phone rings. Shit!
I turn the page on the excuse sheet. "SOLAR FLARES" stares out at me. I'd better read up on that. Two minutes later I'm ready to answer the phone.
"Hello?" I say.
"WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, I'VE BEEN TRYING TO GET YOU ALL MORNING?!"
I hate it when they shout at me early in the morning. It always puts me in a bad mood. You know what I mean.
"Ah, yes. Well, there's been some solar activity this morning, it always disrupts electronics..." I say, sweet as a sugar pie.
"Huh? But I could get through to my friends?!"
"Yes, that's entirely possible, solar activity is very unpredictable in it's effects. Why last week, we had some files just dissappear from a guys account while he was working on it!"
"Really?"
"Straight Up! Hey, do you want me to check your account?"
"Yes please, I've got some important stuff in there!"
"Ok, what's your username..."
He tells me. Honestly, it's like shooting a fish in a barrel. Twice. With an Elephant Gun. At point blank range. In the head.

Re:BOFH - Solar Flares

[djupedal]

Have you EVER shot at a fish in a barrel? Two times? With an elephant gun? At point blank range? In their shiny little slimy head?

Word to the wise. I'm here to tell you that you only need to do this once to appreciate the benefit of a good barrel when fish shooting. I mean, unless you have some pretty large fish (especially in the head area), and a pretty small caliber weapon, you are at risk of not only offing the fish, but you are also liable to put an NRA certified water-draining hole in your barrel. Now me, I use fish-shooting barrels from the Ukraine, and I've never had an issue with water stained carpets.

Try explaining it to your significant other when they get home. "Have you been discharging weapons inside the apartment, again...?" - "Don't we recall what happened when you put the dartboard up on the wall at the end of the hall and shot at it with your new Glock? That little-bitty bullet went thru the dart board and the wall and all four of your alpaca sweaters hanging up on that end of the closet...right?"

Oh dear

[Whiteout]

A Coronal Mass Ejection resulting from an X3 Solar Flare earlier today

Too much Mexican beer after a day on the beach, perhaps.

According to

[chanrobi]

CNN, the shuttle should be able to escape it! http://shogun.shafted.com.au/temp/cnnsucks.jpg

glitches for satellites, no danger for astronauts

[Anonymous Coward]

So why don't they make satellites out of the stuff astronauts are made of?

tsunami

[KillerCow]

Image of the referenced tsunami

Re:glitches for satellites, no danger for astronau

[DoubleRing]

Because, um, we can't? I doubt organic computing has advanced far enough. Last I heard, a mouse brain could auto-pilot a plane, but I don't think that is what scientists are really worried about. A few brief glitches doesn't justify making the enormous investment to create not only wholly organic computers, but completely organic sensors (like gyroscopes. How are we going to make an organic version of that?) We don't have the knowledge or the means to do it. Besides, I have a feeling that an organic satellite would have more problems in space than a mechanical one. A mechanical one would have to worry about a few solar storms and collisions, both of which are only intermittent concerns. Organic satellites would have to worry about a lot of things, like solar wind which would be constantly ablating the surface (think sunburn). An organic satellite would need to feed itself. The only organic means of converting sunlight into energy that I can think of requires a steady supply of water and carbon dioxide. Out of curiosity, how would we communicate with it? Moving on, I guess you could say that an organic satellite could heal itself. A big plus, until you realize that means that it can also develop cancer. I know, it sounds retarded, but there's a lot of radiation in space. Even with shielding, that's a lot of exposure. Instead of having to go on missions to replace a faulty sensor or transmitter, we'll need to send missions to perform surgeries in zero gravity. Sounds fun.

Anyways, all of these concerns are a little academic, especially considering the fact that they don't exist!

Err..

[malkir]

The only thing I'd want to 'take cover' of is a very particular part of my body which does not react well long-term to radiation. Think of the children!

Re:How?? Easy.

[DoubleRing]

It's called the inner ear. We know it's exact shape, we know it's filled with fluid and we know that's how we can tell with our eyes closed if we're upside-down, sideways, etc. The iner ear is our balance mechanism and we don't need three axises when we can have a spiral canal filled with fluid do the same thing with proper sensors attached.

Wrong. As someone else pointed out, the inner ear depends on gravity a great deal. Why do they call the zero-grav training plane the "vomit rocket?" There's also a flight training exercise where an instructor and a student go together into a plane with an obscured canopy so they can't see outside. The instructor flips the plane upside down at a speed so that the centripetal force of the plane remains at 1 G. When they change the controls to the student, a lot of them end up never realizing they are upside down until the instructor tells them. The point is to trust your instruments. If you're flying in bad weather, you can't trust your inner ear, but you can trust the gyroscope.

X-ray flux raw data

[dtmos]

Real-time X-ray flux data is available here. A good site (for BOFHs or just curious laypeople) on this subject is SpaceWeather.

Re:(OT)

[h4rm0ny]

Had a friend at university who used to throw knives and had a target drawn on his door. He was chucking a knife at it when his room mate walked in a fraction of a second after he'd thrown it. So we're all sitting there in stunned silence as this door swings shut behind him with a knife positioned right behind his head and he looks at us all and says "What's the matter with you lot?"

The difference between funny and death is very fine sometimes.