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Solar Eruption To Reach Earth Soon

Posted by Soulskill on from the everybody-duck dept.

rastos1 writes "Spacecraft from NASA recently observed an eruption on the Sun sending billions of tons of particles toward Earth. The solar eruption, called a coronal mass ejection, occurred Tuesday at 1:24 a.m. EDT (0524 GMT) and sent charged particles streaking outward at 380 miles per second. That's just over 1.3 million mph (2.2 million km/h). The solar fallout from the sun storm is expected to reach Earth over the next few days. Interestingly, an unnamed icy comet from the outer solar system dove into the sun and disintegrated nearly a the same time (video)."

4 of 159 comments (clear)

  1. NBD, it seems by AndyAndyAndyAndy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "These particles cannot travel through the atmosphere to harm humans on Earth, but they can affect electronic systems in satellites and on the ground," NASA officials explained in a statement. [Solar Max Photos: Sun Storms of 2013]

    Wednesday's solar storm erupted just 21 hours after another powerful coronal mass ejection (NASA calls them CMEs) on Tuesday (Aug. 20). That solar tempest also sent billions of tons of solar particles on their way to Earth.

    So maybe if you have satellite TV you'll see a few spotty moments, but nothing to worry about.

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    It's always confirmation bias!
    1. Re:NBD, it seems by epiphani · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Yeah, I can't understand why this is news. I've seen it on two sites now.

      This wasn't even an M-class flare, and the CME is only expected to push planetary Kp to 4. As in this doesn't even register as a geomagnetic storm. See this page for an explanation of Kp and you can also see this page for the predicted impact.

      Somehow some idiot picked up on this, and this news is making the rounds. I've seen a lot of people confused by the coverage - this is a bloody whisper in the solar flare world.

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  2. One word by RivenAleem · · Score: 5, Funny

    *Burp*

  3. Solar observing from home by umafuckit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    For those who are interested, it's possible to get the feeds from the orbital solar observatories and make your own movies of the Sun in action. A nice piece of software to automate this is jhelioviewer: http://jhelioviewer.org/ You can even purchase a small solar telescope that will allow you to view the sun safely at hydrogen alpha wavelengths (at which a lot of features are visible). A popular beginner scope is the Meade PST: http://www.meade.com/product_pages/coronado/scopes/pst.php (Lunt is another good manufacturer). With that you can see solar flares, prominences, sun spots, etc. Prominences are particularly fun because they change visibly over the time-course of minutes; so you can literally see the Sun watch the sun change before your eyes. Here's a link on what's possible to see visually: http://www.prairieastronomyclub.org/resources/solar-observing/observing-the-sun-in-h-alpha/

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