Slashdot Mirror
NASA Warns of Magnetic Storm After Huge Solar Flare
coondoggie writes "NASA today said a strong-to-severe geomagnetic storm is in progress following a massive solar flare and coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs are a solar phenomenon that can send solar particles into space and affect electronic systems in satellites and on Earth. Simulations indicate that solar wind plasma has penetrated close to geosynchronous orbit starting at 9am today. Geosynchronous satellites could therefore be directly exposed to solar wind plasma and magnetic fields. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras after nightfall, NASA stated."
Spaceweather.com is reporting this as subsiding....
SUBSIDING STORM: A severe geomagnetic storm (Kp=7-8) that began yesterday when a CME hit Earth's magnetic field is subsiding. At the peak of the disturbance, auroras were sighted around both poles and in more than five US states including Michigan, New York, South Dakota, Maine, and Minnesota:
Considering /.'s lead time this warning would have been helpful last week.
I jest, I jest, this sounds cool. I hope I can see some of the show in the North East.
by Anonymous Coward: I, for one, welcome the shift from car analogies to pizza analogies. um.. overlords?
The storm had already passed by the time this article was posted.
This is something that should have been posted on Sunday.
Beware of the Leopard.
I got this shot of an aurora over Karlstad, Sweden last night http://i.imgur.com/fnbS4.jpg
This is slashdot, you insensitive clod, we aren't supposed to just RTFS, we RTFA!
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Wow, someone sounds like a typical american, can't tell one side of the world from the other (New Zealand is about as far from Europe as you can get, i.e. opposite side of the planet).
The article was fine, /. is somewhat more international.
And you sound like someone who has no sense of humor. It was obviously a joke.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
As a New Zealander I do find it annoying when people fail to identify the timezone.
On a US site? Or does it just bother you that your country doesn't have a site like this?
As a west coast USian, i do find it annoying when people fail to identify the timezone.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
US Eastern time is the only time zone that matters.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
True, but RTFS is supposed to help us decide if we want to RTFA, which kinda fails when we find ourselves feeling like we have to when we don't want to.
A.M. !
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Make that "we have only 1852 timezones you know..."
daid@DavidUbuntu:~$ find /usr/share/zoneinfo/ | wc -l
1852
And mine wasn't? I guess we all lack a sense of humour.
Nothing wrong with AM & PM, and it's unrelated to UTC. But, knowing the timezone would help, considering that the summary says it "has penetrated close to geosynchronous orbit starting at 9am today", while it's 8:10am here now. Must be those damn neutrinos again.
..thanks NASA.. my ISP appreciate the excuse to give crappy internet service.
You should both assume that times given are local for the source. This being NASA and all...
Would that be Kennedy Space Center (ET), Johnson Space Center (CT), White Sands (MT), JPL (PT) or some other NASA office in another time zone?
I just don't buy the idea that a CME can really effect my interne,,@#!@@$@#$@#NO CARRIER
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Come now! Time zones have been updated several times since 1852. I mean, it's fine and dandy to commemorate when time signals were first telegraphed from Greenwich Royal Observatory, but for the most part cities were still on local solar time in 1852.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Well I don't know how or why you got modded flaimebait. That was pretty much my response, "9 AM? Where? How does that tell me anything?"
And yet, some moderator who has apparently never seen Pulp Fiction is too busy on his holy crusade for ambiguous units to figure out you were making a joke. Ah well, I giggled.
Motorcycles, Robots, Space Gossip and More!
Be thankful that he is not posting in swedish. No crees?
Because something coming from an administration of the US government on a very US-centric website won't be in one of about 4 time zones. Something coming from CERN or EU in general is in about 5 time zones. If the event is important enough, it's fairly easy to find out which of those time zones it applies to.
I remember that one (straight from wikipedia):
On March 13, 1989 a severe geomagnetic storm caused the collapse of the Hydro-Québec power grid in a matter of seconds as equipment protection relays tripped in a cascading sequence of events.[2][9] Six million people were left without power for nine hours, with significant economic loss. The storm even caused aurorae as far south as Texas.[3] The geomagnetic storm causing this event was itself the result of a coronal mass ejection, ejected from the Sun on March 9, 1989.[10] The minimum of Dst was -589 nT.
Eurotrash? I know the post was (supposed to be) in jest, but you do realize that New Zealand is nowhere near Europe, right?
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
It was funnier than the post you were responding to, but perhaps I lack a sense of humor as well :)
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Try chewing on: "Sunrise is at about 7 A.M. in autumn"
From the reactions of other posters, it seems that the submitter not only failed to specify which "9 a.m." he is talking about, he also didn't properly specify which "today" he is talking about.
AccountKiller
Have gnu, will travel.
Knowledge and technology are all well and good, except when used for evil or to sell advertising, I guess...
A Solar Storm Strikes Earthâ"and Provides a Warning for the Future
New Forecast: Sun's 'Superstorms' Could Doom Satellites
Could The Sun Set Off The Next Big Natural Disaster?
PS: The sun will go supernova in the near future. Please panic accordingly. :-)
Imagination drew in bold strokes, instantly serving hopes and fears, while knowledge advanced by slow increments...
We don't need the news as it's happening. We just need it on a timely enough basis to form excuses based on it.
Gently reply
... I unplugged my Dishnet.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I wonder what she said.
This is not the sig you're looking for.
That includes MANY duplicates, example: UTC-6 aka CST in North America is listed well over a dozen times not even counting cities listed (which would likely triple that or more).
The tz database lists 405 here:
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones
Mostly we just RTFC.
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
Remember this kids while you go to sleep every day of your life you're about 8 minutes from getting fried by a massive Superflare from that big fusion engine up in the sky. Sleep well!