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Geomagnetic Storm In Progress
shogun writes "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports a strong geomagnetic storm is in progress. The shuttle, ISS and GPS systems may be affected."
They think this storm was caused by a weak solar flare on April 3rd. As you may expect, this has caused some unusually impressive northern lights since it started. What you may not expect is a photograph from Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi aboard the International Space Station showing the aurora from orbit. He apparently tweets a lot of pictures from space. He and his crewmates have taken over 100,000 pictures since coming aboard the ISS.
NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center has a bunch of data on the storm, including the estimated 3-hour Planetary Kp-index, and a bunch of other data and alerts.
A readable description of the relationship between geomagnetic events and aurora can be found here.
I wondered what set off my allergies this morning.
You know, Soichi Noguchi, you are doing very little to dispel the classic stereotype of Japanese tourists always with a camera around their neck, taking pictures of everything!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
What the heck is "twitpic"?!? It sounds like a web app that twits use to post their pictures... what's that you say? It IS a web app that twits use to post their pictures? Uh... I guess it is aptly name then.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It's too bad they couldn't have sent one up to them on the ISS, they could have used it to take pict... they could have twittered from... they could have at least used it to... hmmm
We're having cloudy weather (big surprise in the Seattle area), but it's sure be nice if this would last another 8-10 hours so we had a chance at seeing the aurora this evening. Unfortunately it's rare down here, and even rarer for it to coincide with a clear night...
#DeleteChrome
FWIW, I posted on my blog about this amazing pic from Soichi, explaining it a bit and giving my thoughts.
*** Phil Plait, aka The Bad Astronomer http://www.badastronomy.com
..!!
To watch the geomagnetic activity live, check AuroraWatch: http://corona-gw.phys.ualberta.ca/AuroraWatch/
You can also subscribe to receive e-mail alerts about probable Northern Lights.
From the website: "AuroraWatch forecasts are made by examining the behaviour of the Earth's magnetic field strength, which is measured by ground-based magnetometers."
Who is General Failure, and why is he reading my disk?
... Toyota has issued a statement asking Prius owners to wrap their cars in tin foil before driving.
So, here I am in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a 3g Dongle and suddenly this Geomagnetic storms£(*&^SGU &@*(&((clkxjnx..........NO CARRIER
This is cool as it is on the heals of this story: http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/03/23/0859257/Senate-Votes-To-Replace-Aviation-Radar-With-GPS in which airplanes will now rely only on GPS
This reminds me of the Stargate SG-1 episode "Window of Opportunity" where Earth and several other planets get stuck in a "Groundhog Day" type scenario, and only Jack O'Neill and Teal'c realize what's happening.
Tell him to just lean out of the window for a better shot. What could go wrong?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Contrary to what you seem to believe, TV/Internet and electricity are NOT all there is to life. Yes really.
Sure some slashdotters will die as they are exposed to the harsh rays of the sun when they wander outside for the first time but life will continue on. Some people with no healthy fear of hights will repair the cables and voila, everything be back to normal.
We had power failures before. They are no big deal. Go outside, empty the fridge and have a party. You know. With girls... oh okay, you can remain in the kitchen and look through the window at them, while you build a computer out of egg-cartons.
Mind you, I got a phone-jammer, that I sometimes use just for fun. It is amusing to see just how people react when their cell phone dies. Some really do react as if you cut the umbilical cord.
In a way, it would be an intresting social experiment. Cut the power/internet over the entire globe and see how each culture/area reacts to it. Why do some disaster areas result in looting and rioting and others remain calm? You can't really compare disasters but a global strike like this would be easier to compare. Would there be riots all over? None at all? Only in certain economic areas? Or (oh boy I am going to get it for this one) does it depend on race? Culture? Local leadership?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The EXIF on that photo says 13 seconds at ISO 200 and f/2.8 with a Nikon D2Xs. Even though that camera is a 2006 model, I'd think it would have been able to take acceptable ISO800 photos which could chop that exposure down to about 3 seconds or so. I'm going to assume that the camera was modified to remove the Near IR/IR filter, but if not, that would definitely help the reds come through better.
With less motion, the colors would have been able to compound better, and I'm betting that an ISO800 shot would have had better definition as the photon strikes would have a higher likelihood of compounding on top of each other rather than spreading across multiple pixels. Then again, I've never shot from space at an object moving 28,000kph relative to me. I'm guessing they don't have a TON of time to dink around with exposure settings, although 1000 tweets in, they must have a little spare time.
I came, I saw, She conquered.
Now this should get down modded, Maybe it's a German camera did you ever think about that you insensitive clod!
Why bother
Here are some photos I took of auroras generated by the leading edge of this GMF disturbance in northeastern Montana.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
I'm on their various maillists since I discovered that sensible electronic tend to crash better when there is solar activity. (My old Palm III was resetting it's memory everytime their was anykind of solar burps). But their annoucement are cryptical at best. And last evening their mail said that:
Space Weather Message Code: WARK06
Serial Number: 162
Issue Time: 2010 Apr 05 1831 UTC
CANCEL WARNING: Geomagnetic K-Index of 6 expected
Cancel Serial Number: 161
Original Issue Time: 2010 Apr 05 1427 UTC
Comment: Earlier indications of anticipated geomagnetic storm activity are no
longer present.
NOAA Space Weather Scale descriptions can be found at
www.swpc.noaa.gov/NOAAscales
Which sounds like the opposite of the Slashdot summary...
GNN NEWS FLASH:
Geomagnetic Storm in Progress in the Sol System
No ships may enter hyperspace during this turn.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The Sun isn't "silent", it pulses and puts out massive amounts of energy in irregular fashion all the time. Now for a few years of its 8-10 billion year life it just hasn't been putting out enough to mess things up 93,000,000 miles away.
This week its sending out some energy, not a giant amount by its scale, just enough to screw with things and light up the sky.
The ball of fusion does have a lot of movement on its surface and convection currents under the surface, its not a featureless racquet ball except for the occasional sunspot or CME.