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Space Science

NASA Notices New, Nasty Solar Storm Type 114

Posted by timothy from the my-precioussss-ssssolar-ssstorm dept.
saskboy writes "Solar Storms generally aren't this bad, but in January unique conditions led to a "proton superhighway" that bombarded earth with fast moving protons that could have harmed astronauts caught without a radiation shield. "Scant minutes after the January 20th [2005] flare, a swarm of high-speed protons surrounded Earth and the Moon. Thirty minutes later, the most intense proton storm in decades was underway." Listen to the story here. Archives from the January storms are also available from SpaceWeather.com"
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NASA Notices New, Nasty Solar Storm Type More

NASA Notices New, Nasty Solar Storm Type

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  • No new super-heros? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 11, 2005 @01:07PM (#12789752)
    You mean we had the opportunity for a new generation of super-heros due to radiation bombardment and we totally missed it? In the age of manned private space flight, I'm disappointed.
  • The protons...they just kept...swarming and surrounding me...The protons!....The horror! Babies were screaming! Children were crying! Animals were being slaughtered! THE PROTOOOOONNNSS!!!.. -shudders-

  • Science Behind The Movie... (Score:3, Funny)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @01:13PM (#12789781)
    When the Fantastic Four come out in July, we will see the dangers of being out in space without a radiation shield.

  • Mankind's effect on the solar system (Score:3, Funny)

    by NitsujTPU ( 19263 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @01:17PM (#12789801)
    This is just another sign of mankind's effect on the solar system. We need to stop polluting outer space, or we can count on rapid climate change and other phenomena that will destroy life in our solar system.
    • You are right we are stardust we are golden we need to get back to the garden.

      In all seriousness tho we need to take the next step and establish a permanent human habitation in the solar system - extraplanet or moon bases, oribiting colonies, etc. The earth is mearly the womb of self aware and self directed life. Forget petty wars and bickering over dwindling resources there a star agleam to guide us, let us go...

    • Shh. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by zippthorne ( 748122 )
      I know you're joking, but it's only a matter of time before someone "blames" this on cassini or other "nukes-in-space" projects.
    • I see that my Haiku applies to your post as well:

      Your post makes no sense
      mankind has nothing on a
      solar proton storm
    • At first I read this as "NASA Notices New, Tasty Solar Storm Type"

      As for the parents comment, think of all the debris that we are putting in our little part of space. This has been posted before, but the fact remains that every launch adds to the problem. Soon we will have a very serious mess, and no solution. A little paint chip will ruin your day. A loose nut will ruin much more.

      KOA

      Anchorage, Alaska Will Host National Policy Meeting on Technology [blogspot.com]

  • Wow... (Score:4, Funny)

    by JoeLinux ( 20366 ) <joelinux@ g m a i l . c om> on Saturday June 11, 2005 @01:17PM (#12789805)
    I heard that 5 people aboard the ISS got caught in it. One guy's skin got all orange and hard, but his muscles got MAJORLY enhanced. One guy got increased flexibility, tothe point that he could bend and extend his bones/muscles as much as he wanted. Another guy was affected so much he could start fires on the outside of his body. An unfortunate woman caught in this stream turned invisible. However, the worst one was a guy who suffered a severe personality loss. He was said to be just plain mean and nasty. And his nerves for some reason discharged electrical shocks many times their normal size.
    • However, the worst one was a guy who suffered a severe personality loss. He was said to be just plain mean and nasty. And his nerves for some reason discharged electrical shocks many times their normal size.

      What's this about? It's not in the original FF plot. Is there some joke I'm not getting, are you giving away parts of the movie plot that should have been a surprise, or are you just wrong?
      • Sorry, but it's pretty similar to the movie.

        Hint: Doctor Doom's origins are majorly revamped for the movie.
      • The villain in the movie, as best as I can tell from the trailers, is a fifth guy who was on the station and apparently now has electrical powers... and is a mean and nasty villain. I'm not too familiar with the original FF so I've no idea how accurate that is...
    • I heard that 5 people aboard the ISS got caught in it.... However, the worst one was a guy who suffered a severe personality loss.

      I understand he went on to become a project manager at NASA.

    • One guy got increased flexibility, tothe point that he could bend and extend his bones/muscles as much as he wanted.

      However, his joy turned to profound disappointment as it was pointed out that the penis contains neither bone nor muscle.
  • when my flux capacitor wouldn't charge, right around that time, must have been all those protons just swarming and swarming around us.
  • That explains the "Alien Invasion" sequel playing out on Capitol Hill [go.com] that afternoon.
  • I blame global warming.
  • One thing is for sure, that man was NOT born to be a narrator.

  • The Goggles! They do nothing!
    • Seriously, what is it with all the Goggles comments on Slashdot? Seems every day there's a new story that's got something to do with Goggles. Could we at least put them into their own goggles.slashdot.org section?

      I mean, I know everybody is fond of Goggles, what with their "Do Nothing" motto and all, but really... this article is nothing more than a Goggles Slashvertisement. Can't you people see that?

  • Yeah and it's not global warming (Score:3, Insightful)

    by argoff ( 142580 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @03:20PM (#12790459)
    Everytime something like this happens there are unusual weather patterns later on in the season, and then people scream bloody murder that it is global warming and demand immediate and overwhelming regulations be put in place right now.

    I'm writing this for the record because I just know I'm gonna here this a few months down the road.
    • I mention to them that Saturn has also increased in temperature in the past 20 years - without any human intervention whatsoever. They aren't interested in that at all. Don't try to confuse them with facts now. Sometimes they get violent, you know like when you take their candy away or tell them to stop ordering others around. I used to think the Iranians were nuts, going around through the streets hitting themselves with chains (after the Ayetolla (I-A-Told-YA) Komenhi (KHO-MEN-YI) got back in power, t

    • Re:Climate Change (Score:2, Insightful)

      by saskboy ( 600063 )
      How in the heck did that get moderated Insightful?
      Even if the climate changes this year aren't completely attributed to human produced pollutants in our atmosphere, the solar storms are NOT a reason to scale back efforts to clean up industries that have been way too dirty for way too long.

      There are benefits to enacting immediate changes and regulations that do more than just ensure we aren't cooking our country with green house gasses. We can also reap economic benefits of saving energy, having fewer he
      • I'm not disagreeing with you about the need to cut back pollution, but I'd like to point out that the climate was getting warmer long before humanity was putting out enough greenhouse gasses to cause it. During the Revolutionary War, Alexander Hamilton dragged cannon across the frozen Hudson River to help Washington. Fifty years later, that would have been impossible.

        I've heard, recently, that there's so much forrest, agraculture and so-on in the USA that it's taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere

        • I've heard, recently, that there's so much forrest, agraculture and so-on in the USA that it's taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere faster than it's putting it in, but I don't have a cite for it.
          I'm afraid you heard wrong [realclimate.org].
    • I was saying the same thing last night when I was caught holding a bloody knife.

      Everytime something like this happens there are unusual dead people discovered later on in the evening, and then people scream bloody murder that it is murder and demand immediate and overwhelming regulations be put in place right now.

  • Explains lousy ham propagation (Score:3, Informative)

    by LM741N ( 258038 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @03:28PM (#12790509)
    The article expains how lousy amateur radio propagation in the HF bands can occur when www.spaceweather.com or WWV says that something unpredicted is happening and they are caught off guard. Its rather amazing. Thats why its important to sign up for their telephone call and email alert service. Rob N3FT

  • It's too bad that we don't have a constellation of (Score:5, Interesting)

    by multiplexo ( 27356 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @03:49PM (#12790632) Journal
    satellites that could constantly monitor the entire Sun. If we were to put a satellite into the Earth-Sun L1, L4 and L5 points we'd have good coverage of 120 degrees of the Sun's surface. An L3 satellite, appropriately stabilised in its orbit (which we'd also have to do with the L1 satellite) would give us coverage of the side of the Sun opposite the Earth. This data could be relayed back to Earth via the satellites at L4 and L5. This would leave some blind spots which could be filled in by placing a satellite in Venus-Sun L4 and L5 points (Venus Equilateral [technovelgy.com] anyone?) and relaying back to Earth appropriately.

    It would be really cool to be able to have data from the entire Solar surface instead of our currently limited view. It would also be handy to know if a solar storm was brewing on another part of the Sun and was likely to let loose when that portion of the Sun rotated to face Earth.

    • You do know that SOHO [nasa.gov] is already happily orbiting L1? Obviously, from L1 it has an unobstructed view of the sun all the time. Additionally, this gives us almost 180 degrees of coverage - not quite as good at the rim, but coverage none the less.

    • SOHO, STEREO, SDO, etc. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by oneiros27 ( 46144 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @06:13PM (#12791435) Homepage
      The problem is, that although you can place satellites there, getting data from some of these places is a big problem, because you have to schedule antenna time through the deep space network.

      Currently, there's the ESA-NASA project SOHO [nasa.gov], the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, which sits near L1. You can't actually place it directly in the sun-earth line, because then you can't communicate with the satellite, because of too much noise from the sun.

      Currently in testing are the two observatories called STEREO [nasa.gov], the Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory, which will launch two satellites flung ahead and behind the earth (but because of the physics involved, they have no way of stopping them, because they won't have enough fuel to stop.

      (and there's also the Japanese Solar-B [nasa.gov] project, which is the successor to Yohkoh, set for launch next year)

      But in my opinion, the most significant solar observing satellite in planning is SDO [nasa.gov], the Solar Dynamics Observatory. (and I say this purely from an IT standpoint) SDO will be at an inclined geosyncronous orbit -- so it will be able to talk to a single antenna the whole time -- rather than storing up its data, and then sending it down to earth once a day, it will be sending a constant stream of full resolution data.

      And we're not talking about the 1megapixel images from SOHO/EIT or SOHO/TRACE instruments -- or even the 4megapixel from STEREO/SECCHI. We're talking about 16 megapixel images, every 10 seconds from one of the instruments, with a planned terrabyte of uncompressed data per day.

      Oh -- and I work for NASA contractor, and am assigned to work on STEREO and VSO [virtualsolar.org] (the Virtual Solar Observatory, a search engine for solar physics data).
      • First, that's some NICE bandwidth. Looking forward to the pictures!

        A couple of semi-off-topic questions here, and not about the SDO (as impressive as it sounds)... I don't know where else to ask them....

        1) Just how fast were the protons moving? Faster or slower than light? I assume slower, otherwise that would have been just as noteworthy, if not moreso.
        2) How long did they take to hit Earth?
        3) How fast does the sun rotate?
        4) Might this ("solar-planetary magnetic propulsion") be a possible means
        • I think if they were moving faster than light then we'd all be hearing about how relativity was proven to be incorrect, and not the solar storm.
        • All that I know I get from the others. (I do IT in a department full of solar physicists, but I don't fully undertand the data that I deal with)

          NOAA maintains a list of 'Solar Proton Events [noaa.gov]'. My boss maintains a copy of the data, which has an extra footnote [nasa.gov]:

          The >10 MeV proton event began on January 16 at 0210 UTC following the X2.6 flare late on the 15th. The peak flux following this flare was 365 pfu at 16/1840 UTC. The >10 MeV protons decayed to 117 pfu by midday on January 17 when a stronger in

  • Looking up on the SOHO gallery (Score:4, Informative)

    by KinkifyTheNation ( 823618 ) on Saturday June 11, 2005 @03:54PM (#12790653) Journal
    I thought this was pretty interesting, here's a picture on January 20th [nasa.gov], then another picture from February 20th [nasa.gov].

  • TFA says it was unusual that the protons from the CME got to earth as fast as they did, and says it's a mystery how they got accelerated.

    My question is: were the protons actually accelerated? Were they more energetic when they arrived here than normal?

    Maybe the solar explosion warped space in such a way that the protons didn't have to travel as far. Or maybe some other spacial distubance caused both the explosion and the proton effect.

    • Something accelerated the protons to near the speed of light. They arrived so soon after the electromagnetic radiation from the flare.

      According to Francis Cucinotta, NASA's radiation health officer at the Johnson Space Center (source [nasa.gov]), an astronaut on the Moon would have received a dose of 50 rem, enough to cause radiation sickness.

    • I don't believe the protons were accelerated at all. Rather, I believe that they were decelerated.

      What I believe we are seeing, is the deceleration of relativistic lone quarks and antiquarks, down to speeds that allow them to interact with us in the electromagnetic spectrum, as protons, neutrons, and other colorless particles.

      The relativistic quarks and antiquarks would interact with nonrelativistic nuclei and electrons through the strong force, and would be known as "gravity".

      However, the magnetic fiel
  • January 20th? I guess we'll have to refer to it as "the nasty in the past-y".
  • Excuse the ignorance (wait, this is slashdot ...)

    Would the moon (lack of atmosphere and all) have a longer standing record of solar events? We've only been monitoring the solar wind since (oblig FF ref), would Lunar 'soil samples' reveal evidence of 100 or 500 year storms?
    • The Moon is more like a dosimeter. You could estimate the total received amount of radiation. The problem is that there is no geological process to create time-ordered layers in the soil. It might be possible to learn something from the proportions of radioactive isotopes in the soil. A really major event could produce a noticeable change in the isotope ratios when compared to those produced by normal background radiation.
  • Has no one here read the SF novel Sunstorm by Clarke & Baxter? You know, the sequel to Time's Eye.

    If not, pick it up. The book's called Sunstorm, you figure it out.
  • bombarded earth with fast moving protons that could have harmed astronauts caught without a radiation shield.

    Phew! Good thing NASA was in another multi-year shut-down mode!

    Really, America has become so pussified about manned space exploration that they might as well just give it up to the Chinese. No American will ever walk on Mars or even the Moon again.
  • We need to move the Space Station closer to the Sun to block out this radiation. Pronto. And equip it with famale protons.
  • ... am to become the next superman? I was flying from Bulgaria to northern Norway on January 20th...
  • Don't all protons travel at the same speed (ie, the speed of light)?
  • Lots of readers seem to be confusing Protons and Photons.

    Photons are light.
    They have zero rest mass, and always travel at the speed of light.
    ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photon [wikipedia.org])

    Protons are the neucleus of a hydrogen atom.
    It takes a lot of energy to get them moving anywhere near the speed of light.
    A star, a particle accelerator, or a supernova would do.
    No matter what you do, they will never reach the speed of light.
    Thy have roughly the same mass as a hydrogen atom
    (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P [wikipedia.org]
  • No nasty new NASA Solar Storm will work the willies out of me, my man!

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