Three More Solar Flares

Evil Adrian writes "Space.com reports that the sun shot off three more solar flares on Monday. This is quite a historic period for solar activity." The article breaks down the recent flares, and what the effects have been. Update: 11/05 01:57 GMT by T : cyberMalex writes "Space.com is reporting the 10th in a string of major solar flares which have been errupting from the sun over the past two weeks. "This one saturated the X-ray detectors on the NOAA's GOES satellites that monitor the Sun. The jury is therefore out on the definitive classification of the flare." "Other scientists have indicated the flare may indeed be an X20 or stronger. Only one X20 event has been seen in recent years, and it was not Earth-directed and had little effect.""

Aurora Cam

[dolo666]

From the site: Aurora Cam [space.com], which "shows the current extent and position of auroral activity in the northern hemisphere, based on measurements taken during the most recent polar pass of the NOAA POES satellite."

Does this recent solar activity make any of you feel uneasy? I mean... is it time for Bruce Willis to suit up again and save the planet? Nine X-class solar flares... eeeek. That has to be bad.

Historic Period?

[Grip3n]

Historic period in solar flares? Sorry, I might not be all that caught up on my solar flare monitoring, but how long have we been doing that exactly? It can't be more than in the last 50 years and considering the age of the subject in question, that's not even a drop in the bucket - its an atom in the bucket. Who knows? Perhaps this is a little more regular than we originally thought. We just started getting into this. I know if I had as much gas as the Sun I'd be doing a whole lot of belching too.

Historic Period?

[pizen]

This is quite a historic period for solar activity.

How so? The Sun has been around a lot longer than we've been monitoring it. This could be nothing in the Sun's history.

Got Sol?

[dukeluke]

Well, I must say that I'm slightly more interested in the solar activities of recent due to my Astronomy class at college.

This is a very interesting time for the scientist within each of us - we can see first hand the importance of Earth's magnetic field - as well as the cause/effect of the solar flare upon our power plants, satellite dishes, and yes - our Astronaut up in the International Space Station.

Almost

[Brown]

In fact, the battle of Hastings was between the Normans (from Normandy in France, though of Norse - 'viking' - ancestry), and the English Anglo-Saxons.

The Anglo-Saxons were Germanic peoples who colonised England after the departure of the Roman legions (though they had been raiding previously). It appears the celtic britons integrated with them (as slaves/lower-caste), and some norse got mixed in as well (the Danes ruled much of England not long before, and there'd been several danish Kings of England 50-odd years previously).

The name 'England' comes from one of the main Germanic peoples who colonised England during the 'dark ages' after Rome, the Angles - the other main ones being the Saxons and the Jutes.

All in all, Western European history of the times got kindof complicated - which as very little to do with sunspots of course...

dark side of the sun

[kayen_telva]

so how do we know there arent a dozen more that spooged off the "dark side"..

we only see the ones that go in our direction right ??

Re:Anyone see anything?

[Bob(TM)]

Here's the Auroral Activity Map [noaa.gov] from the Space Environment Center.

At least one of the recent geomagnetic events began just after dawn where I live, so that chance was pretty much shot. Others were overcast or inconvenient (check out the GOES magnetometer [noaa.gov] for times when the magnetic field was disturbed)

It helps to be in a really dark area - light pollution in a city will just about kill any chance of seeing it. The only time I ever saw it (the '89 geomagnetic storm event), I went out specifically determined to try and catch a glipmse (I was watching the data pretty closely). I drove 30 minutes away from the nearest city lightsource and waited in the dark about two hours total (two shifts). I was just about to call it quits (it was after midnight) and it appeared suddenly. Ten minutes later, it was gone.

Re:Nothing really matters.

[thelexx]

The Battle of Thermopylae, the Trojan War, the Peloponnesian War and the Punic Wars spring instantly to mind.

Re:Anyone see anything?

[lotho brandybuck]

We saw the Aurora in Portland, Oregon Tuesday night last week. Very beautiful.. worth a little
temporary ass-freezing-off.

We got pictures, I posted them [dnlnk.com].

A great site for information is at [Solar Terrestrial Dispatch] [spacew.com]
they also have a photo gallery.

The sun rotates every 27 days.. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens next month. I'd hate to own a satellite right about now.

Re:It's not the # of flares .. it's

[jafuser]

The first of the three was a Class X8 flare.

Considering the sun nearly punched through to the next magnitude class, I wonder if it's even got a label?

I only see classes A, B, C, M, and X in the graph on spaceweather.com. If this keeps up we might need a label for the next order of magnitude.

Re:Anyone see anything?

[jafuser]

There's a picture of aurora on spaceweather.com taken by someone in Orlando, Florida. In addition, I saw an aurora during the previous cycle about a hundred miles south of Orlando. It was mostly just a reddish haze that slowly changed in intensity, but it was reported the next day as a rare aurora event.

I'm even further south now, so I obviously don't watch for them much. Perhaps I may keep a closer eye on the spaceweather site to see if I can catch one again =)

Saw one in RI last thursday

[overunderunderdone]

I saw one in Rhode Island last thursday night around 7:00. It was very dim and at first I just thought it was light pollution I always notice from the town north of me. But after a while it became more distinct and had that characteristic aurora shimmering and shifting. It was still so dim that I was half convinced it was only my over active imagination until a friend called to tell me to go out an look at it.