Sun Produces First Cycle 24 X-Class Solar Flare

radioweather writes "For the first time since solar cycle 24 began, the sun produced a massive X-class solar flare, the strongest type of flare event. This comes from sunspot group 1158, which produced an M-class solar flare on Sunday. The EVE X-ray imager on the solar dynamics observatory shows a bright explosion on the sun, so bright it made a lens flare. The last X-class solar flare was on December 13th, 2006 and was part of solar cycle 23. Look for spectacular auroras in a couple days as the slower Coronal Mass Ejection hits earth. This will be a test of how well our newest technology handles stray energy from such solar disruptions."

Comments

Stop this already... It's Oracle

[c0lo]

'Nuf said

am I the only one?

[youn]

for a second I thought it was about a 24 core new server from sun... then I realized the solar flare was not the oracle purchase :)

start worrying?

[louic]

How is this informative if we do not know if we need to be worried or not? Please let us know if we need to start worrying or not, just like in this post earlier on slashdot.

Re:start worrying?

[PolygamousRanchKid]

How is this informative if we do not know if we need to be worried or not?

The best thing to do, is to monitor announcements from from your local authorities on radio and television . . . um, which will not be working, because they were trashed from the soft X-rays from the solar flare. OK, let's try again. Wait for the police car to drive by and give announcements over the patrol car's megaphone . . . which will also not work, because the car ignition and megaphone were fried by the X-rays, and the policeman is hiding in his cellar anyway, because only an idiot would go outside into a hail of X-rays.

OK, just wrap yourself in tinfoil, and go outside at night and look for the aurora borealis or aurora australis, depending on which hemisphere you live in. The aurorae are much more impressive if you drop some acid before observing them. As a matter of fact, if the acid is good enough, you don't even need the aurorae to see funky lights.

Re:start worrying?

[Opportunist]

Duh! It's a thermonuclear reactor! Of COURSE it is hellish dangerous! Why do you think it was built so far away?

Re:start worrying?

[Lumpy]

And that is why you dont have any superpowers like the rest of us.

I go out naked during Xray events while holding a TV antenna high in the air.... I can now get stains out of any carpet with my mind!

Oracle

[sakdoctor]

I did think Oracle for a second, but I quickly progressed to worrying if my computers could withstand a

Re:What a coincidence.

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Eh, that's just one of the audiophile wet-ops teams. After a few thousand rounds of being mocked about $600 ethernet cables and $2,000/meter silver IEC cables, some of the tighter wound ones go rogue and start striking back at the uncaring world that will never understand or accept them.

In addition to the onboard sound(an unforgivable aural insult), you may find that your system and backups have been selectively purged of all lossy-compressed media. In especially severe cases, all audio may be purged(it was only CD "quality" to begin with, and even lossless compression makes audio sound flat and lifeless. It has to do with jitter, you wouldn't understand.)

i'll be ok

[circletimessquare]

i only use monster brand digital AV cables. the best buy salesman assured me they were designed specifically to resist x-class solar flares