X-Class Solar Flare Coming Friday

First time accepted submitter kit_triforce writes Satellites have just detected a powerful X1.6-class solar flare. The source was active sunspot AR2158, which is directly facing Earth. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash. Ionizing radiation from the flare could cause HF radio blackouts and other communications disturbances, especially on the day-lit side of Earth. In the next few hours, when coronagraph data from SOHO and STEREO become available, we will see if a coronal mass ejection (CME) emerges from the blast site. If so, the cloud would likely be aimed directly at Earth and could reach our planet in 2 to 3 days.

Comments

Re:Solar Flare Prediction? Yay

[rmdingler]

Actually, we'd have two or three days notice that a big one (Carrington Event) was to strike earth directly.

We'd only know about an hour in advance whether or not the CME's energy pulse would line up catastrophically with our own magnetic poles.

So even if we know it's coming, catastrophic is only one possibility.

Re:Just as long as it's not XK-class.

[Ginger Unicorn]

There's a recent Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast where Phil Plait explained exactly what impact a big CME would have on the grid, and I think he said that there are some very large transformers that would be destroyed and would take 5 to 10 years to replace due to there being nowhere tooled up to replace them. I think he said this would mean large chunks of the grid without power for that timespan.