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Space Science

Massive Sun Flare This Weekend 117

Posted by Hemos from the lotsa-fun-with-static dept.
A lot of people have been writing to us for the last couple of days, talking about the massive sunflare or cornoral mass ejection that's headed our way. The folks in Quebec probably remember the disastrous one from 11 years ago - solar flares can due massive damage. So, don't be surprised if the cell phone/satellite dish and such isn't work up to snuff - and if you live in the North, keep an eye out for some beautiful aurorae, as skajohna pointed out. BTW, the touchdown dates are expected to be the 19th (today) and 20th.
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Massive Sun Flare This Weekend More

Massive Sun Flare This Weekend

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  • Re:Space Shuttle? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    There's a shuttle up there at the moment - they're doing a massive satellite radar mapping mission - check out the http://www.nasa.gov (and it'll be a real pain if it's aborted - the GIS people have been waiting for the data being harvested for years)

  • Re:And if you have magnetic media (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    [I presume this is humor?]

    I hope you'll permit a few humble suggestions: A better idea might be to put your magnetic media in the refrigerator--remember, solar flares hate the cold too. On second thought, perhaps it would be better to simply attach the magnetic media to the refrigerator with the magnets and leave the refrigerator door open to make the whole house cold. This has the added benefit of protecting you too from radiation as well (infrared radiation in this case, but who bothers with details?) Remember to be ready to close the door before the house gets too cold! Also, I'd suggest cutting out a bunch of cardboard squares, covering them with aluminum foil, and scattering them about. Decoys can't hurt, you know, and it'll buy you time as you fend off those intrepid solar flares.

    Don't stand too close to magnets though. You may get hit by a magnetic monopole (they are attracted to magnets) and your health insurance coverage won't apply.

    [p.s. I'm not serious. Don't stick magnets on your diskettes or else solar flares will be the worst of your worries].
  • Funny, that's all I ever get, thanks to $CHEAPASS_UNI. And really, I fail to see how any sort of catastrophic failure could make the net any worse than it normally is. ISTM that it would be a lot more fun if everybody was on 64k leased lines and mail went through UUCP again. At least there'd be no ad banners, and .com stock valuations might return to rational levels.

    --TM, ucbvax!unrvax!donner!theman

  • Thank you. That must have been it, since I have read that one once or twice.
  • We're not even at the peak of the solar flare season yet, if I've understood things
    correctly.


    Normally astronomers won't know when the peak of the solar max actually occurs until after its over, when the sunspot numbers peak and begin to decline again.

    I don't know where you're getting your information, but it's almost impossible to predict how severe the effects of this are going to be. Much of what you mention *could* happen, but it's definately not a certainty...

  • The M class flares DID happen with astronauts in space. Feb 17, those guys are up mapping the Earth right now! There was, of course, no danger to the astronauts, because that is NOT a big flare. The fact that the CME is coming our way means there will be enhancements in currents in the ionosphere and magnetosphere (if it does hit us, and this looks like a good halo CME to me).

    It's a proton event which is associated with an big X class flare (they are always categorized by X-ray flux, with M a factor of 10 less powerful than X) which one would worry about. And there's no avoiding it because the particles are relativistic. ~15 minutes after the Xrays are detected comes the blast of protons. You could bring people home, but by that time they would have received a pretty good dose. Our magnetic field does protect us some, the moon is not a real
    safe place though. '68 moon shots, we were on a solar downcycle. Guess that makes sense.

    Astronauts (and especially Cosmonauts) have been up for some big ones. Russians have reported seeing lights flashing while they were trying to sleep. Thats' Cerenkov radiation of particles exceeding c in their eyeballs! Party!

    kabloie
  • If only moderators knew what they were doing:

    Expect this to get worse. We're not even at the peak of the solar flare season yet, if I've understood things correctly. This one could easily send the control systems on satellites haywire, resulting in some interesting
    (and expensive!) atmospheric special effects.

    Geosync. satellites aren't going zooming anywhere.
    And the faster Iridium comes down the better.

    As we get further into the year, things could easily get a lot worse.

    Worse than worse? Worser? Worstest.

    Now is NOT a good time to buy shares in telecom satellite companies. Also, expect trans-continental Internet service to stagger.

    That's total BS. You are just making this up now!

    Yes, there -are- undersea cables, but much of the NSF equiptment used satellite feeds. If those are interfered with (likely) or destroyed (entirely possible), the Internet is likely to suffer severe lag, or even fragment until alternative links can be brought in.

    If WHAT is interfered with? The fiber optics under a mile of conducting salt water? At 40 degrees latitude? Safest place to be in a magnetic storm.

    The only things that is manmade and conducts electricity are pipelines and powerlines. And you can bet the utility companies are watching this one carefully.

    Just keep your eyes out for another Anik, but your packets are in no danger. Just the Spice Channel.

    kabloie

    P.S. Just keep your beady eyes on this plot [umd.edu]. If the density hits 50/cc, look up!
  • Hey, we got smacked a few hours ago. Yep, we're gettin rammed pretty good. Crosspolar potential ~150kV, Goes Hp taking the dive...yeah if you are in Wisconsin, go outside tonight (I know, that is asking quite a bit). You are bound to get a look at some aurora. Look North for starters :)

    -kabloie
  • A news report i read...not too long ago actually, regarding something just like this....reported that there were approx 600 satellites in orbit in 1989 whereas today there are over 2,000...i think those are the numbers anyway....
  • Oh i realize that, however every 11 years it goes from being a once in a while occurince to a bombardment, and the flares tend to get a bit more nastier as well. I never mentioned anything about them NOT happening, just that we're more likely to get hit with a big bad mo-fo of a flare NOW, and more often, hence affecting a greater number of systems. Personally, i think ANYTHING we're going to put out into space should damn well be shielded enough to withstand a solar flare..unless they don't mind burning a million bucks here and there and pissing off alot of customers
  • i've seen that. they made it a movie or tv program or something. can't remember its name.

    mayeb i'm thinking of something i saw on discovery channel, about a mars trip and what would happen if there was a solar flare and the constant bombardment of solar winds, etc.

    just my £0.1p/min =]
  • Just a note, incase someone didn't know, I think something like this happens every 11 years periodically. And unlike that last time, this time I'm sure we have lot more satellites. I remember when the hughes satellite malfuntioned a sometime back which caused a lot of pagers to stop working. I hope you people take steps to have alternative communication mechanism means ready. Atleast start using land lines and find out where the nearest post office is located.

    rkt
  • heh... yea I am facing the same problem.

    but I don't think its related :) most of the
    internet is too fast to go over the satellites.

  • We're not even at the peak of the solar flare season yet

    When is this supposed to be?

    Yes, there -are- undersea cables, but much of the NSF equiptment used satellite feeds.

    Possibly a stupid question: what does NSF stand for?

    Also, expect trans-continental Internet service to stagger

    Argh.... I get Slashdot slowly enough as it is. :P
  • I left a magnet from the thing that moves the heads a hard drive, which is a pretty strong magnet, overnight on a Zip 250 disk. The disk didn't get damaged.
  • The astronomers and satellite HAVE been saying
    this for years, if you've read the press
    carefully. It is more likely a solar storm
    will zap a power grid or communications satellite
    than Y2K computer errors cause a problem.
  • Chill... We already knew that hemos can't spell... No news there...
  • I remember that night quite clearly: I spent about an hour outside, watching the most beautiful northern lights I ever saw. It was a breathtaking sight because they covered most of the sky and were very bright... those images will stay with me for a long time :)
  • Too fast? Not from where I'm standing it isn't. :-(
  • Doesn't look good this far. Aurorae isn't that common where I live, but now I was hoping for some. I'll stay up late in case it clears.

    And that's S-k-a-j-o-h-a-n btw!

  • An occasional voice of reason is very welcome.
    For myself, Welcome to /. Enjoy.
  • ...would it be a premature coronal mass ejection?

    (completely shocked nobody else posted this first!)
  • IIRC, this happens in the first book of the Mars series (Red Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson. Just checked my copy and it appears to happen about page 72. It isn't clear whether the water is fuel, bit it appears that they at least thought about the possibility of a solar flare and designed some sort of shelter into the ship.
  • As a matter of fact, we do have more spacecraft in place this solar maximum (SOHO, Yohkoh, ACE, and others) with which to monitor the inner heliosphere to help determine when coronal mass ejections are on their way. Unfortunately, the causes of coronal mass ejections are not well understood, and we have only a limited ability to predict when such storms will arise. Space Weather, including the prediction of geomagnetic storms [substorms] believed to result from the blob of plasma emitted in a CME striking the earth's magnetosphere with the right magnetic field alignment, has been an active area of interest in space science in the past decade.

    Protecting spacecraft and terrestrial systems such as power grids requires first that we have a reliable predictive ability; the economic impact (and strategic impact, if you are in the military) of a "false positive" is high. Recent work in this field is encouraging, however, and I suggest the following site at the Naval Research Laboratory for more information: http://wwwppd.nrl.navy.mi l/whatsnew/prediction/index.html [navy.mil].
  • CMEs move at about 500 to 1000 km/sec. This gives a time of about 2 days or so between when the eruption occurs on the solar surface and when the CME plasma would arrive at earth.
  • Well Hydro-Québec said the power failure was due to the auroras, but I think it's because they had a crappy power grid. Look what happend in Ice Storm '98...
    OTOH, pitch darkness is best for looking at auroras... ;-) I remember the skies being RED -- apparently the rarest types of auroras.
    Weather here in Ottawa, ON is clear skies. We should be in for a treat! see ya outside.
    ---
  • Among others i can't entirely recall at the moment, i know this happens in both Mars by Bova and Titan by Baxter.. except that in the case of Mars it was a lead-shielded room and in the case of Titan one of the astronauts got caught unawares in an unshielded connection tube and wound up with radiation poisoning.
    Dreamweaver
  • [p.s. I'm not serious. Don't stick magnets on your diskettes or else solar flares will be the worst of your worries].

    Hate to say this, but I've tried sticking floppies to the fridge with your average fridge magnet, left there for about a week. No problems. Nothing wrong. Not a bit flipped.

    Of course, when you use a _strong_ magnet...
  • > Only the first twenty or so comments are likely to get moderated up,

    Except the very first one, which usually gets moderated down...

  • I actually remember watching a Discovery program that talked about this. It said that basically if something big like this happens while astronauts are in space they are toast. The space shuttle is no where near thick enough to protect them from these. It also mentioned that it would even be a concern if there was a moon base because the moon does not have much of an atmosphere to shield it from this. The moon would have to have secial shelters to shield its inhabitants from these.
  • Didn't the last activity do some signifigant damage to Quebec's telecom & power systems?
  • Go read the series on the BOFH (Bastard Operator From Hell)

    Then you'll get the joke.
  • Red Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson

    As I remember it, the water tanks were for both propulsion and water supply once they got to Mars. Can't remember if they had planned that contingency for the flare or not. Also, they had a farm on board that they weren't able to get shielded, so all the animals on board died.
  • I'll be sure not to do any of my nude sun-bathing during the flares!! ;o)
  • When we had the heavy solar activity last year the Northern Lights were excellent. This year it is winter (clear skies) and the solar flare is more powerfull. The solar flares will also affect short wave and other radio communication.

  • I was under the impression that some space shuttle orbits were occasionally beyond 25,000 miles. Doesn't the shuttle deploy geostationary satellites from time to time, requiring a much higher orbit?
  • What exactly is a coronal mass ejection composed of? I'm aware that it's an ejection of plasma from the surface of the Sun (or some other star), but what is it? Hydrogen? Helium? Both? Neither?
  • I wouldn't say that nothing will happen. In fact, if I were an astronomer or geologist or in any field remotely related, I'd be sorely disappointed if nothing happened.

    But in the sense that there will be no catastrophic or long-term effects, then yeah, there's nothing to worry about.

    (Standard disclaimers apply, I'm not an expert and have no idea what I'm talking about.)
    These events have previously caused power grids to fail in Canada, England and Scandinavia. And the obvious failures of satellites. If these problems were handled without inconveniencing the populace before, it's because 11 years ago you didn't see everyone on the street with a cellular phone on their ear and satellite dishes hanging out of every building, home, and port-a-potty. So while the damage caused this time around won't likely be any worse than before, we will be much more aware of it. And when the mindless masses suddenly can't conference call from the 47th street cafe, I doubt they'd be patient enough to listen to a bunch of eggheads talking about coronal mass ejections. (Which sounds like something you'd hear a doctor say before he puts on the elbow-length glove.)

    So, as this season of solar activity goes on, while we shouldn't be expecting massive failures of electronic systems, we should definitely expect massive failures of cognitive systems. And lots of ex-Y2K doomsayers suddenly popping up as solar flare doomsayers.

    Idiocy is never out of season.

    PS. I'm reading an article about how the US power grid is supposed to be much more at risk because of deregulation and the increased sharing of power. But really, I think this makes it less susceptible. The grid should be stronger now since power companies would be paranoid about a rogue neighbor taking them down. Not to mention the things they did in the name of Y2K.
  • No satellite company ever relies on a single bird. There's so much redundancy that the loss of one spacecraft is not likely to result in major problems.

    Remember Galaxy-4? No pagers for millions of people for days. No backup for that. (Week ending May 22, 1998)

    sl

  • That and your "11 minutes" figure came from the amount of time light takes to get to Earth.

    Also, it really only takes 8 miuntes, not 11, but that's just splitting hairs. Pretty weird thinking that the sun could have gone Nova a few minutes ago and we'd still be blissfully ignorant.. =)
  • I may seem stupid but I want to see this stuff and I don't seem to be finding much information on where to look. I mean I know the sky but when and what direction? Due to the fact that I won't be back on /. for a day or two please e-mail me with a response, I will be able to check that. I live in Wisconsin, outside the city. Please let me know where to look.
  • Indeed the relation of the solar cycle to climate is very important, but the most recent analyses of data show t at solar forcing cannot account for the dominant fraction of the warming trend.

    It's still mostly our fault.

    But in any case it doesn't really matter: if changes in the Sun's dynamics are making the Earth hotter, it will suck just that much more when we add insult to injury.
  • Here's a great site from the university of Alaska with images, movies, info and prediction of Aurorae. http://www.pfrr.alaska.edu/~pfrr/AURORA/ [alaska.edu]

    They don't say much about any net shattering event though.

  • About the only thing you'll see is aurora and about the most specific you can get is "in the sky." You will most likely see it North of your position, but, depending on the intensity of the storm, you may see it overhead and south.

    When is also a tricky call. Once the ejected matter reaches the earth's magnetic field, it will distort its shape and lead to the interesting stuff. Apart from the basic t=x/v type calculation, you can't get much more specific.

    Keep an eye on the GOES magnetometer [noaa.gov]. When it starts gyrating, it's time to start watching.

    By the way, you can't miss it when you see it (I've seen it once - a result of a mass ejected by a flare). It helps to get away from city lights.
  • A good plot on the SESC page to watch is the GOES magnetometer [noaa.gov].

    When this starts gyrating, it's time to look.
  • There are problems there that a spellchecker won't catch. "due" != "do" but both are spelled correctly. If we fuzz over the distinctions between words, we reduce the utility of our language.

    To give an example which might get across, how about if I start using "*=" when I mean "+=" ? I can use a macro to make the compiler take it... so why not?
    One reason 'why not' is that this effectively removes an operator from the language. It's not one that I'd really miss much, but imagine what would happen when someone tried to read my code. If I were to get used to this kind of substitution, I certainly couldn't read your code.

    Back to the language we're using here, English, there are reasons for all these silly little rules about spelling and punctuation and using the correct homophone and not letting sentences run on and on and on...
    Those reasons all center around communicating effectively. If you can learn to make a computer take your code, you can learn to communicate in writing with another human being.

    Oh, I guess there is one more reason; consideration for others. I hope I haven't made any errors in this. I haven't found the spellcheck button in Netscape yet (haven't looked, really).

    Nels

  • I wonder how much of an affect on the stockmarkets a highly rated comment on a widely read message board like this could have? Over the weekend as well? Barely noticable Im sure, but I dont doubt that even the smallest affect could be taken advantage of.
  • I live in Florida, and I remember a few years back (I suppose it could have been around 11 years), we experienced an aurora effect here in Florida. A specific part of the sky was glowing red, slowly shifting it's patterns. It was quite eerie, since it was unexpected this far south.

    The next day the newspaper published an article about it being a once-every-fifty-years type of event. It may be a long shot, but it may be worth taking a look outside tonight even if you are in the southernmost third of the northern hemisphere.

  • Now hold on there... These things last at most days. I can't imagine that having that large an impact on CB sales. Perhaps you're thinking of the mid-seventies solar minimum? That lasted several years. The low sunspot numbers would have shut down skip propigation on 11 meters (CB).

    As for shortwave... All this will do is move the "maximum useable frequency" (MUF) up. It will close down the 41m shortwave band, and cause great propigation for amateur radio operators on 12, 10, and 6 meters. Far from being a shame, this is when you take your 2m (144Mhz) rig up to the top of some hill, and try for those 1000+ mile contacts. :-)

    Temkin

  • Ok, I have been noticing some strange stuff going on this weekend... first of all, people are driving worse than ever in the suburbs of Miami (I witnessed a guy on a bike nearly get mown down today.. yeesh!). Second of all, none of my three computers, two running Win 95 and one running 98 se, have crashed all weekend. Third, I heard on Friday that North and South Carolina could be heard on 2 meters... (unfortunately, I have only a 5 watt handheld, not exactly the greatest implement for messing with tropo ducts; and little time to play with it.) Next time we have a huge solar flare, might Netscape's annoying little Quality Assurance Agent die? hah... we'll just have to see... Tom, KG4CYX, in Kendall, Florida, pathetic driving capital of the world
  • The shuttle boosters can't get it that high, besides even if they did it would be dangerous because of radiation. The shuttle does deploy satellites for geosynchronous orbit, but what happens is that they release them in low-earth orbit and the satellite then has thrusters on it which lift it to geostationary (22000 miles). The manoeuver that lets you change height of orbit requires very little energy (delta v) compared to getting from earth into orbit in the first place, so those boosters on the satellite need not be too big.
  • hoping for something, still got 10lbs of pancake mix just sitting in my cupboard begging for use... and of course, a generator in the basement to run the waffle iron, oh yeah baby. end of civilization == waffles for me!
  • We have already been experiencing disruptions in service. Of course these may just be a result of recent widespread DDOS attacks. Anyhow take a look at the animated gif on the web site, its really amazing.

    http://www.spacescience.com/headlines/images/fullh alo/cme_c3_big.gif

    We can actually see matter exiting the sun's surface. I am truly impressed. What is scary though is that within the next few months we can expect to see a lot more of this. I guess I will put that new satellite dish on hold for awhile. Really, though I don't expect it to have much affect on our current infrastructure. Sure I might knock out a couple of satellites, but when you realize that currently we have over a 1000 active satellites orbiting the earth you quickly realize that there is some redundancy in place. Lets try to get away from the Y2K scare thing... it only encourages people to spend a lot of time and energy on otherwise useless pursuits.

    Just my two cents...


    Nathaniel P. Wilkerson
    NPS Internet Solutions, LLC
    www.npsis.com [npsis.com]
  • Go to their site [panamsat.com], or call 1-800-PANAMSAT, to find out how many satellites they have.

    Of course, there are different sizes of failures, sometimes it takes longer to recover. The biggest problem would be a total loss on a TV satellite. They would have to either bring another satellite and co-locate it with the failed one, or have all the customers point their antennas to a different location.

    Moderators, take note:
    1)Read the moderation guidelines before moderating anything

  • ...couldn't this really screw with the astronauts in the space shuttle?

    Space Environment Center [noaa.gov] says: "Solar protons with energies greater than 30 MeV are particularly hazardous. In October 1989, the Sun produced enough energetic particles that an astronaut on the Moon, wearing only a space suit and caught out in the brunt of the storm, would probably have died. (Astronauts who had time to gain safety in a shelter beneath moon soil would have absorbed only slight amounts of radiation.)"

  • Why isn't nasa working on problems like these?
  • Just in case anyone comes back to this discussion (which has long since quieted), it seems NASA has taken satellite images of the aurora effect on Earth caused by the recent solar events. See here [nasa.gov].

    I wish more people on /. went around the site and tried to put up "last posts" instead of "firsts." How fun would that be?!

    A. Keiper
    The Center for the Study of Technology and Society [tecsoc.org]

  • I recall the Equinox on this topic. The way we know these things are coming is due to, guess what? More
    satellites. If they get broken how do we know?

    Not just satellites get damaged. IIRC the power blackout in Canada 11 years ago was due to the currents
    induced in the power grid by the changing magnetic flux blowing the system
  • ...solar flares can due massive damage.

    Does Hemos mean solar flares can do massive damage?

  • Actually, a previous poster who talked about "solar flare seasons" is a bit more accurate. There is a periodic, 11 year cycle of the frequency of solar flares, and we are getting towards the peak right now. However, being in the "low point" doesn't mean solar flares can't occur -- it's just they're a lot less likely.
  • I'm a bit vague here, but couldn't this really screw with the astronauts in the space shuttle? Or are they close enough to Earth to be protected by the Earth's magnetic field (which protects, more or less, those of us on the surface)?
  • I remember back in the mid-70's when there was a particularly nasty and extended sun spot peak - right in the middle of the "CB" (Citizen Band) radio and "trucker" era... It did some major damage to CB sales then. &nbsp And with the proliferation of cell phones, sat phones, global positioning devices, wireless lans, etc., it would be interesting what the radio/x-ray interference will do to folks, especially since we've become so dependent on this technology.

    The one industry that has always gotten impacted every time one of these events occurs is short-wave/ham radio... &nbsp Those who listen in or manage these media know that they always have to change their broadcast frequencies - particularly during heavy EM bursts such as what's being described as coming - which inturn impacts the listening audience. &nbsp 'Tis a shame.

  • Now hold on there... These things last at most days.

    Sure... this particular event is a flare...

    I can't imagine that having that large an impact on CB sales. Perhaps you're thinking of the mid-seventies solar minimum? That lasted several years. The low sunspot numbers would have shut down skip propigation on 11 meters (CB).

    Folks writing on the main threads for this story have indicated that we're approaching the peak of the approx. every 11-year sunspot cycle. &nbsp I'm just recalling a somewhat significant cycle that had occurred in the mid-70's. &nbsp I remember reading some articles discussing the "fads" of the 70s and how CBing was portrayed (movies, songs, commercials, etc) and then all of a sudden, it "disappeared" (of course alot of fads do that). &nbsp However in that case, a 2-way radio technology that had mostly only been used by police, military, emergency personnel, truckers, hams, and other hobbyists, had suddenly become popular with the average joe driving something other than a rig. &nbsp Back then, "everyone" knew what "Channel 9" was, blah blah... &nbsp Then suddenly you didn't hear any more about it. &nbsp Of course we all know that the gas prices had skyrocketed - like they're doing today (and the interest rates were moving through the roof and there was this "energy crisis", etc)...;-) &nbsp But alot of the articles (I wish I had the references - but this was like 10 years ago) pointed to the increased sunspot activity that was apparently "peaking" during that time and of course this goes on for several years. &nbsp No, I'm not saying that a single solar flare or ejection would shutdown life as we know it (unless it was pretty huge, IMHO), but a several year period of increased sunspot activity will interfere with our more prolific communications!

    As for shortwave... All this will do is move the "maximum useable frequency" (MUF) up. It will close down the 41m shortwave band,

    But I listen to stuff in that band... :-( &nbsp I think some stuff from Japan used to broadcast in that range...

    and cause great propigation for amateur radio operators on 12, 10, and 6 meters. Far from being a shame, this is when you take your 2m (144Mhz) rig up to the top of some hill, and try for those 1000+ mile contacts. :-)

    Hee hee hee...

  • Almost all of these devices use UHF or microwave frequencies that shouldn't be affected by ionospheric disturbances. You might see some long distance propagation on VHF frequencies (lower TV channels and FM broadcast band).

    True... most of these devices hover around that 900Mhz range, which is well below the the gamma range... &nbsp But I guess my concern is an increased ionization of some of the heavier particles in the atmosphere that may inturn cause interference, as well as how this will impact our already fragile ozone layer, allowing more stuff to leak through... ;-)

  • You really have no idea of what you are talking about.

    Do you think any power line or pylon could hold under an accumulation of 30 centimeters of ice?

    Make sure you can back up your statement, because one like this just makes you look like a fool.

    Pi mange donc d'la marde.

  • To both replies:
    You overall agree, so there's nothing for me to answer to.
    I just tend to be a nice guy replying to folks.

    If this is offtopic,
    then PLEASE someone from slashdot tell me so.
    I'm new here, and I don't wanna waste space, nor do I want to ignore replies.

    Fine Sunday Everybody,
    & watch the flares striking on Monday
    (Monday's always a bad day, right ? ),
    george./
  • Books? Oh I have seen those once.. I think most of them are in display now so people can remember they were :)
  • nasa can't do anything about this, it really is in the hands of your theological preference. The only thing they can do is tell people to spend a lot of money on EM shielding, and companies are alot more willing to risk a sattelite than to pay for something that might not have any noticeable effect, however we should find out soon if it would have made a difference. -As the skies opened up to earth only one thing was heard...(i haven't figured that part out yet any suggestions?)
  • I could SWEAR it sounds really familiar. Not the space shutle of course, but some kind of interplanetary mission. It's in the middle of a 2 year journey or something and surprise, a big solar flare. So the whole crew has to hide out in a special little area surrounded by all the water tanks (for the fusion engine of course).

    Anyone remember this?
  • The sun-spot season reaches a maximum between 2000 and 2001. If it's even close to symmetric, it'll peak towards the end of this year.

    The NSF is the National Science Foundation, the guys who ran the Internet backbone for a long time, with US Government money. They supplied many countries with international feeds. When the US segments of the Internet were privatised, all NSF equiptment transferred to private companies, who had neither the resources nor the will to maintain it. It's expensive to maintain lots of high-speed feeds - much cheaper to throw away and and all you don't need at that minute, and worry about emergency backups when the emergencies happen.

  • I see some of the space weather sites going down hard tonight. The biggest effect of this storm will be that a LOT of university sites will have to upgrade their systems.

    Click here [noaa.gov] for the Space Environment Center's daily forecast and current conditions. Nice plots, basically of the Sun and Earth conditions. No solar wind, though.

    Also the SOHO spacecraft has a really awesome monitor, results from which are shown at this page [umd.edu].
    Be the first on your block to detect the CME shock front! :)

    kabloie

  • I have one question....all that money spent trying to fix the Y2K bug...shouldn't some of it had gone to solar flaring ( or CME ) protecting our information infastucture. The internet/technology was NOWHERE near as widespread as it was during the last solar maximum ( 11 years ago....back in 1989, when the WWW wasn't even a thought at CERN and Mosiac years away for NCSA ). How come nobody ever did anything before? Because like the Y2K bug we haven't thought about it until it's too late. I just hope it's not too bad....of course it might explain why none of Slashdot's images are working ;)
  • And with the proliferation of cell phones, sat phones, global positioning devices, wireless lans, etc., it would be interesting what the radio/x-ray interference will do to folks, especially since we've become so dependent on this technology.

    Almost all of these devices use UHF or microwave frequencies that shouldn't be affected by ionospheric disturbances. You might see some long distance propagation on VHF frequencies (lower TV channels and FM broadcast band).

  • This happens in "Red Mars", by Kim Stanly Robinson.

    In the book, it is the second manned mission to Mars - the first was a single guy, and the second is the 100 people who will be establishing a long-term base there. During the solar flare event they wait in the shielded area, as you say, and talk politics and listen to classical music. (Beethoven's 6th.) The discussion of politics is actually important - it is the starting point of the whole political aspect of the Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars trilogy.

    Of course, the 100 people are actually 101 - during the solar flare, Coyote, the stowaway, hides out in the agricultural section of the ship with the farm animals. Not as well shielded, but good enough.

    I can't believe I remember all this. I'm sure if I made some mistakes I will be corrected.

    Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
  • Primarily ionized hydrogen, a bit of helium (a few % or so if I recall, but I haven't worked in the field for years) and also trace amounts of other species, like oxygen, iron, calcium, etc. The blob of stuff emitted is a relatively dense plasma, as compared to the solar wind plasma.

    It should be noted that unless you are an astronaut en route to the moon or mars, the danger to most satellites and terrestrial systems isn't the CME, per se, but rather the geomagnetic storms that sometimes are triggered by CMEs. Generally speaking, a CME will trigger a substorm when it impinges on the earth's magnetosphere over a long period (more than a couple hours or so) with a southward pointing interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). These solar wind conditions are said to be geoeffective, and they can trigger massive changes in the earth's magnetosphere, changes which can have deleterious consequences in systems we depend on, such as power grids and communications satellites. CMEs aren't required for geoeffective conditions to be satisfied (patches of fast solar wind with the right orientation of the magnetic field can trigger substorms as well), but they are responsible for the largest geomagnetic storms.
  • A good page on solar flares is Overview of Solar Flares [nasa.gov].

    NSF = The National Science Foundation [nsf.gov].

    Noel

    RootPrompt.org -- Nothing but Unix [rootprompt.org]

  • Complete fragmentation? Even if all satellites were destroyed, the undersea cables would be able to provide *some* bandwidth, even if everyone could only get 1k/sec individually.
  • Hey, have any of you ever remembered that human civilization has only taken off since this nice interglacial period happened?

    We *should* be in an ice age now, an ice age that should be slowly warming up over the next few hundred thousand years.

    But, thank god for humanity, the glaciers retreated so that we could form our modern civilization.

  • For years, I've been telling my boss that our WinNT servers crash because of "Solar Flares"... then diverted the budget money for "neutrino shielding" to fuel my beer and pizza habit.

    But now, one well-placed CME could wipe out our entire data center! Anyone want to sell me some lead?
  • I've noticed that images.slashdot.org has been down all day today. I wanted to ask the other /.ers if they've seen this too?

    _________________________
  • have one question....all that money spent trying to fix the Y2K bug...shouldn't some of it had gone to solar flaring ( or CME ) protecting our information infastucture.

    Well, there is little TO do, unfortunately.

    We rad-harden our satellites as best we can, but this radiation is powerful.

    If a significant solar event happened when our guys were on the surface of the moon, they would have been dead in hours.

    I however did surround my linux box with ~1200 lbs. of lead.

    Sure, they're not making fun of me NOW are they?! :-)

  • Uh - you have to be really careful about who you read, and check their biases. There a lot that's put out of the sort "my computer model which doesn't include water doesn't match the satellite data and therefore it's not the Sun".

    The "It's still mostly our fault" still doesn't pass Physics 101 --- the temperature rises before the anthropogenic gas buildup takes place. Until that is explained (and no anthropogenic model has done so), claims that solar forcing can't be it so it's "still" man (there's no "still there, really, since it was never proven through any rigorous analysis) should be treated with much skepticism --- solar forcing still accounts for MUCH more of the variance than any GCM.

  • You are right that radiation is dangerous, but only if you are outside the Van Allen belts, which extend from something like 6000 to 36000 kilometers altitude. Low Earth orbit is at about 300-500 kilometers, where most radiation has already been absorbed in the upper atmosphere. Still, astronauts on the space shuttle would get about a year's worth of normal exposure (down here on Earth) if a large solar flare happened. This is not too much, but they probably wear lead underwear 'cause they don't want funny-looking children afterwards. Some parts of the body are much more sensitive than others to radiation. In low earth orbit, 4mm thick of aluminum shielding is enough (shuttle is thicker) and you would get about 100 rad/year. Appollo had 7 g/cm^2 aluminum equivalent shielding, which would not have been enough for astronauts to survive a large flare.
  • Here are some URLs with information on
    current aurora activity:

    Auroral Activity Extrapolated from NOAA POES
    http://www.sec.noaa.gov/pmap/index.html
    gopher://sec.noaa.gov/00/forecasts/ALTS.txt

    http://www.sec.noaa.gov/info/kp-aurora.html

    http://uvisun.msfc.nasa.gov/UVI/current_image.ht ml

    http://solar.uleth.ca/www/auroras.html

    --Neal

  • There is a 'real-time' solar activity monitor [maj.com] which analyzes and summarizes the current status of X-rays and the geomagnetic field every ten minutes from data downloaded from the NOAA Space Environment Center using its satellites and terrestrial stations.

    There's a nice little html code available, so you can add the X-ray flare and geomagnetic storm monitor to your own website as well... check out some of the other interesting pages on the site, like the one with daily solar images of different types from spacecraft (SOHO) and ground observatories.

  • -
    I've been an astronomer for some time,
    and I can assure you, this won't harm satellites or anything else.

    This is way more common than it seems,
    just because such things weren't reported in the past (meaning 10+ years ago).

    The sun's activity has a 8 / 12 year cycle.
    Over that period activity, such as flares and increasing sun spots, become more frequent, then they fade back to normal.

    In other words: 8 / 12 years ago the same thing happened, and it didn't caused any harm.

    PS: "8 / 12" year cycle means that there are two cycles overlapping each other.
    Astronomers normally mention just the 12 year period, and both periods are not accurate.

    So - don't panic, nothing will happen.
    george./

  • And if you have magnetic media (Score:3)

    by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Saturday February 19, 2000 @10:30AM (#1259669) Homepage Journal
    Remember that solar flares can erase magnetic media. Don't wrap them in tin foil though -- have you ever seen what happens to tin foil in the microwave? Then don't wrap them in tinfoil. Wrap them in an old pillow case and then wrap it with magnets! Solar flares HATE magnets!

  • There is backup for that (Score:3)

    by mangu ( 126918 ) on Saturday February 19, 2000 @10:30AM (#1259670)
    No satellite company ever relies on a single bird. There's so much redundancy that the loss of one spacecraft is not likely to result in major problems.

    The problem is electrostatic discharges. When ionized particles hit the satellite they leave an electric charge which builds up until the maximum voltage supported by the insulation is reached and a spark jumps between two conductors.

    Ironically, older satellites, with lower communication capacity, were more resistant to this effect, because they were spin-stabilized. The rotation had an effect of equalizing the electric charges along the satellite structure. Newer and more powerful satellites are three-axis stabilized, presenting always the same face to the sun, which is much worse from the charge build-up standpoint.

    Moderators, take note:
    1)Read the moderation guidelines before moderating anything

  • Solar Flare season (Score:4)

    by jd ( 1658 ) <imipak@ y a hoo.com> on Saturday February 19, 2000 @10:02AM (#1259671) Homepage Journal
    Expect this to get worse. We're not even at the peak of the solar flare season yet, if I've understood things correctly. This one could easily send the control systems on satellites haywire, resulting in some interesting (and expensive!) atmospheric special effects.

    As we get further into the year, things could easily get a lot worse. Now is NOT a good time to buy shares in telecom satellite companies. Also, expect trans-continental Internet service to stagger. Yes, there -are- undersea cables, but much of the NSF equiptment used satellite feeds. If those are interfered with (likely) or destroyed (entirely possible), the Internet is likely to suffer severe lag, or even fragment until alternative links can be brought in.

  • Solar Cycle 23 (Score:4)

    by waldeaux ( 109942 ) <donahue@skepsREDHATis.com minus distro> on Saturday February 19, 2000 @10:44AM (#1259672)
    We're not quite up to solar max yet (of cycle #23). Cycles 19-22 were among the largest in recorded history, but some predictions (by Schatten [harvard.edu] and a few others) suggest that Cycle 23 might be a little wimpy when all is said and done (as was Cycle #20).

    One thing that isn't reported in the press is the excellent agreement between solar forcing and global warming. To zeroth order the Earth is warmed by the Sun, but variations in solar irradiance are likely the primary contributions to decadal variations in the mean terrestrial temperature (as opposed to centurial or millenial variations like the major Ice Ages). Certainly there is a lot of data about climate over the last 2-3 thousand stars that is correlated with changes in solar activity.

    A paper by Friis-Christensen and Lasser (1991, Science, 254, 698) showed that the mean length of the sunspot cycle is inversely correlated to mean terrestrial temperature. This correlation can be seen in other proxies of solar activity back millenia. Doing a quick search produced this page [astro.lu.se] which has a lot of the basic underlying information. What one has to remember is that ALL of the "climate models" that are used to suggest an anthropogenic cause to global warming make the basic assumption that the rise in termperature is primarily correlated with an exponential growth in industry.

    This is a nice hypothesis, but doesn't fly in the face of the data. FRom the F-C figure [astro.lu.se], one should note that temperature rises mostly before 1940. However, exponential rises in CO and CO2 production would demand that it take place *after* 1940.

    Over 90 percent of the variance is explained by the Sun. But one thing is clear: in order to have 20th century global warming be explained by man-made causes, you have to violate cause and effect. There might be something buried in the noise, but that'll take more analysis to ferret it out. Nonetheless, it points out that one must be careful reading things in the press or from press releases.

    One of my pet research projects is learning more about the sunspot cycle, Activity Cycles on other stars [harvard.edu] and stars with suppressed activity (like the Sun's during the Maunder, Sporer and Dalton minimums. So, a lot of what I've been looking at with stars, overlaps with some of the work done in solar forcing and its effect on Earth's climate.

  • excuse of the day. (Score:5)

    by Signal 11 ( 7608 ) on Saturday February 19, 2000 @10:45AM (#1259673)

    Tech support> Well sir, it's likely your system isn't working due to solar flares.

    ... and for once, my BOFH Excuse of the Day would be accurate....

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