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Large Solar Flare To Glance Off Earth

Posted by samzenpus on from the raise-shields dept.

JoeRobe writes "According to spaceweather.com, a major X5 solar flare is on its way to deliver a glancing blow to the Earth's magnetic field. This is the second x-class flare to be released by the same sunspot in the past few days, the first being an X1. In both cases, the sunspot (spot 1429) was not directly facing Earth, but it is still active, and poses a threat for a large, Earth-directed flare in the next few days."

9 of 154 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It's??? by marcle · · Score: 2, Informative

    Obligatory angry flower: http://www.angryflower.com/bobsqu.gif

  2. where'd I put my tinfoil hat? by nani+popoki · · Score: 5, Informative

    1. Don't be too concerned. This is more an issue for astronauts (minor inconvenience) and satellites (possible software outages), unless you live at high latitudes, in which case auroras are cool!

    2. X5 is strong but not catastrophic -- this might affect shortwave reception but it's not going to take down the power grid.

    1. Re:where'd I put my tinfoil hat? by ShadowBlasko · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not even close my friend. We had an X28 about 7 year ago...

      --
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  3. Re:Flare vs Asteroid by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    because light can't make anything move at all...

    radiometers and solar sails are just figments of our imaginations...

    maybe i am just being pedantic...but for the gp yes...the solar flare could affect the asteroid's orbit...however it will probably only be on the order of millimeters over the next thousand years.

    as well as the flashlight would affect the cannonballs trajectory...however likely not enough to be measurable before it hit something.

  4. Glance off? Looks like a direct hit! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    check it out here.
    http://iswa.gsfc.nasa.gov/downloads/20120307_014400_anim.tim-den.gif

  5. too late -- the flare already hit. by oneiros27 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The flare travels at the speed of light ... so we've already been hit by it. The CME is what's going to come tomorrow morning (or tonight, depending on your time zone)

    And the "spot number" as this article called it is actually NOAA Active Region #11429. I'm sick of this modulo 10000 value -- AR1429 was decades ago. (the list I'm looking at starts at AR6777, which was in August 1991)

    I'll leave it for some other time to rant about the difference between 'sunspot number' (a subjective number to describe the amount of spot coverage on the sun in the visible spectrum which goes back centuries) vs. 'active region number' (a NOAA index of spots seen in x-ray)

    --
    Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
  6. Link NOAA model of aurora activity and visibility by RossR · · Score: 4, Informative

    NOAA forecast model of aurora activity and visibility

    http://helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/

    If the little red line is south of your location, you might see something (assuming northern hemisphere). So far no love for the lower 48.

  7. Re:Carrington Event ? by networkBoy · · Score: 3, Informative

    Because in the case of grid failure they will run on diesel generators.
    Which are off and relatively safe until the grid blows, which is after the CME is passed, then they start (even if a delay of manual starting is required, no worries). And in this case there is not a wall of seawater to drown the gennes.
    -nB

    --
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  8. Re:Poses a Threat? by geekoid · · Score: 1, Informative

    The Mayans are still around, dumb ass.

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