Approaching Solar Storm Forces ISS to Take Cover

vichyschwa writes "A Coronal Mass Ejection resulting from an X3 Solar Flare earlier today is forcing the ISS and Shuttle astronauts to take cover and may result in communication disruptions. Last week, the same sunspot generated what astronomers described as a rarely imaged solar tsunami. The activity began with an X9 flare Dec. 5. According to Spaceweather.com, "satellites may experience some glitches and reboots, but astronauts are in no danger." However, the astronauts were ordered to a protective area of the space station as a precaution."

X2 vs X9

[andphi]

I was confused by this, so I looked it up.

From the Wikipedia article on Solar Flares: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Flare [wikipedia.org]

Solar flares are classified as A, B, C, M or X according to the peak flux (in watts per square meter, W/m2) of 100 to 800 picometer [wikipedia.org] X-rays [wikipedia.org] near Earth, as measured on the GOES [wikipedia.org] spacecraft. Each class has a peak flux ten times greater than the preceding one, with X class flares having a peak flux of order 10-4 W/m2. Within a class there is a linear scale from 1 to 9, so an X2 flare is twice as powerful as an X1 flare, and is four times more powerful than an M5 flare. The more powerful M and X class flares are often associated with a variety of effects on the near-Earth space environment. Although the GOES classification is commonly used to indicate the size of a flare, it is only one measure.

Re:Fantastic four

[sporkme]

1989 [solarstorms.org] was pretty entertaining.

Re:Take Cover?

[Cyno01]

Presumibly an extra shielded compartment of the station?

Re:Take Cover?

[Unholy_Kingfish]

One of the modules of the ISS is hardened against just this type of event. All of the modules have radiation protection, but this class of flare exceeds the safety limits of the those modules.

Think of it as a storm cellar in space.

Topic drift: gyroscopes

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>like gyroscopes. How are we going to make an organic version of that?

You've been carrying around examples your entire life. Fluid-filled loops, one for each axis, little hairs along the inside to detect fluid rotation.

Try this. Sit up straight in a swivel chair, kick it into a spin, maintain the spin until you get used to it. Then quickly lean forward. You will then know exactly how a gyroscope feels when you try to tilt it. Have a bucket handy or do it on an empty stomach.

Besides, look how well organic technology worked for the Vorlons and the Shadows. Unless you're going to argue that it's a bad idea because they were both fictional and they both lost.

Re:Look north tonight

[arrrrg]

Saw this earlier today: MIDDLE LATITUDE AURORAL ACTIVITY WARNING [spacew.com]. Sadly, it's way too foggy here to see anything ... I was really looking forward to seeing my first aurora.

Re:How?? Easy.

[DoubleRing]

It's called the inner ear. We know it's exact shape, we know it's filled with fluid and we know that's how we can tell with our eyes closed if we're upside-down, sideways, etc. The iner ear is our balance mechanism and we don't need three axises when we can have a spiral canal filled with fluid do the same thing with proper sensors attached.

Wrong. As someone else pointed out, the inner ear depends on gravity a great deal. Why do they call the zero-grav training plane the "vomit rocket?" There's also a flight training exercise where an instructor and a student go together into a plane with an obscured canopy so they can't see outside. The instructor flips the plane upside down at a speed so that the centripetal force of the plane remains at 1 G. When they change the controls to the student, a lot of them end up never realizing they are upside down until the instructor tells them. The point is to trust your instruments. If you're flying in bad weather, you can't trust your inner ear, but you can trust the gyroscope.

X-ray flux raw data

[dtmos]

Real-time X-ray flux data is available here [noaa.gov]. A good site (for BOFHs or just curious laypeople) on this subject is SpaceWeather [spaceweather.com].

Re:Take Cover?

[Markus Landgren]

Guess what? "The ISS and shuttle astronauts" means "the ISS astronauts and the shuttle astronauts".

Re:Look north tonight

[yellowbkpk]

Check out this page [noaa.gov] for the "energetic particles" count in the atmosphere. Basically, you have a decent chance of seeing Northern Lights if you are being covered by a yellow or red pixel.

X3 is nothing..

[slashkitty]

I don't even know why this is news. Sun activity is very low right now, we're at the bottom of the cycle right now: http://www.sec.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/ [noaa.gov]

A few years ago we had that X28 flare!