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Space

Another Solar Storm Approaching 59

Posted by timothy from the mind-yer-cell-phones-boys-it's-a-killer- dept.
RZG writes: "Aurora might be visible again across the mid-latitude portions of the U.S. and Europe, thanks to the CMEs (coronal mass ejections) associated with two powerful X class solar flares, and some smaller flares. The activity may begin in the next few hours, and last up to several days. The NOAA predicts another G3 class storm. Watch Spaceweather.com, the NOAA's space weather forcast, or this solar activity report for more information. The geomagnetic storm could cause power and satellite failures."
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Another Solar Storm Approaching More

Another Solar Storm Approaching

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  • We had a "random" crash on our SQL server (which was running without a case) on tuesday when the solar flare happened. Is that a coincidence? Who knows. Still a bloody pain in the ass.
  • NOAA predicts another G3 class storm


    Apparently the G4's are in such short supply that they couldn't even get one for this.


    Groan.....

  • that is completely...TOTALLY incorrect! in fact it is hard to imagine a paragraph containing more bullshit pseudoscience than the post above. the aurora is NOT caused by thermal radiation in the upper atmosphere, it is caused by high energy particles (fast moving protons and electrons) slamming into the neutral atoms of gas of the atmosphere and ionizing them. when the electrons of the ionized atoms fall back to lower energy levels they emit light. it has nothing to do with "superheating of the atmosphere". there will be no effect on global warming(if indeed it is occuring) because the amount of energy deposited in the atmosphere by aurorae is miniscule compared with the huge amount of insolation the daytime side of the eath recieves every day. the arorae will NOT have any effect on atmospheric pollutants since pollutants are restricted amlost entirely to the troposphere and stratosphere and the aurora happen in the upper atmosphere(mesosphere). honest, you really dont need to make a hilariously innacurate post if you dont have a clue about the subject matter.

  • Re:So... (Score:3)

    by Bryan Andersen ( 16514 ) on Thursday June 08, 2000 @04:51AM (#1016708) Homepage

    This one is counter to our magnetic field. One of the reports on the original story's links points this out. I can't wait till night fall. I scouted out a few really dark fields around Minneapolis, MN where star watching is great. My plan is to plant myself at one of them with the wide field camera to catch the night skys.

  • Re:So... (Score:4)

    by jabber ( 13196 ) on Thursday June 08, 2000 @03:25AM (#1016709) Homepage
    What matters much is the polarity of the storm. IANA{astro-meteorolgist}, but I recall from a Discovery/Learning Channel show that a solar storm can be north or south polarized.

    If it's in-line with Earth's magnetic field, it tends to just flow around the planet without causing any major issues,

    If it's counter to our natural shielding, it causes spectacular light shows, messes with RF communication, disrupts electrical flow in the power grids (sags, spikes, outages), fries satellites, plays havoc with air traffic control and on-board aircraft systems, and causes people at high altitudes in the north polar regions (Canada and up) to see Yeti, Bigfoot and Elvis.
  • Being from Canada, the Aurora Borealis is nothing new to me, however, if this causes anything like the light shows we got here last summer, I'm not going to sleep until the storm is over.

    I've never seen boreali that bright with that many colours. Another thing was the size of them, I'm used to seeing a few strands and trailers on the northernmost edge of the sky. Last summer though, it filled the entire northern hemisphere of the sky with writhing, glowing, hissing (yes, up here you can actually hear them) fire strands.

    I can't think of a more impressive, beautiful sight. Not even the greatest sunset/rise came close to comparing to this. So if you want a really great show, book a trip up here to Calgary, or even better, some place further north like Edmonton or Ft. McMurray... this promises to be great.
  • Yeah. In '89 I was living in Albany, Western Australia (about 38S, from memory), and one night I was outside and we had the most magnificent aurora imaginable - which is unusual that far north, solar maximum or no.

    So for those of us who live at lower latitudes (I'm in Perth now, which is a few degrees further north again), this is really the only chance we'll get to see the aurora without travelling a long way.

    Incidentally, this storm probably isn't quite strong enough for us Aussies to see (possibly the southern tip of Tasmania might get some activity), but hopefully we will get some good aurorae in the near future.

  • A friend of mine, who is a bit on the paranoid side, (he is the kind who thinks that the world is out to get him) has been preparing for what he calls "planet buster" solar flares. He tells me that they could knock out the power grids of major cities.
    He has been preparing for the panic of the masses for years now, collecting rations, learning about survival, etc. I don't really know about the possible reality of this, but it seemed to be an amusing anectdote (sp) for this story.
  • Try this [nasa.gov] but you won't get much while earth wether pridiction is far better then solar wether it is still pritty lame and probably always will be. Try reading "Chaos" sometime.
  • and causes people at high altitudes in the north polar regions (Canada and up) to see Yeti, Bigfoot and Elvis

    Don't forget the dragons...lots of little pretty coloured dragons. Wait, I see those all the time. Never mind.

    FunkyDemon
  • Plots of the data from USGS observatories can be seen on-line at: http://geomag.usgs.gov/frames/plots.htm
    - "If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything" -Mark Twain
  • Mine's a pint thanks. sorry.
  • The SOHO hotshots [nasa.gov] page has a description and some better movies of the event.

    The TRACE [nasa.gov] spacecraft took some nice (but large) movies. Look here [nasa.gov], here [nasa.gov], and here [nasa.gov].

    This is offtopic, but if you want to learn more about how SOHO recovered, look here [nasa.gov].

    ---
    #include <std_disclaimer.h>
    Robert Jacobson
    Flight Operations Team member - SOHO

  • The closest in site is just off Lexington Ave just north of 35W on the north side of town. Go north on Lexington from the 35W interchange. Take the first right (at stoplight where the road goes from 45MPH to 55MPH). Go past the tree line and find a place to park along the next field. Very few lights in the vacinity, and most are obstructed by the trees. The other places I only know how to get to them by landmarks, etc. Generally I head out north or north west of the cities. Usually along I35, 10, or I95. 10 seams to have the best places close in. Going south puts the MPLS/St Paul light bubble on the northren horizon right where one wants to look.

    I'm bummed. This one died off quickly. No show here in MPLS. The magnetic field of the storm had a southerly direction at the start, but it faded to a northerly one latter on. This turned off the display. Hopefully next time. We have a weak CME shockwave still to come, but I'm not expecting much.

  • Geomagnetic Wheather forecast seems to be a difficult art (^_^).
  • That were secretly watching us by hiding in our sun's corona using metaphasic shielding. Or was that an Episode of star trek, damn, i can't remember.

  • Whoops! Not CATV... cable TV.
  • I'd fetch the cows, then close the barn... they tend to get nasty bumps when they hit the closed doors 8^)

  • Re:Environmental impact statement (Score:3)

    by EricWright ( 16803 ) on Thursday June 08, 2000 @02:16AM (#1016723) Journal
    Yeah, but you forget that the van Allen belts will shield approximately 100% of that radiation. As long as you stay within a few hundred miles of Earth, you're ok... you ARE within a few hundred miles of Earth, right?

    Eric
  • It seems a little funnier now BOFH #6 [plig.net]
  • Actually, middle and and perhaps lower lattitudes will be able to view the aurora.

    From the Astro Alert
    Active sunspot region number 9026 spawned its third major X-class flare today. This one covered about as much area as yesterdays X2.3 flare, but was slightly less energetic at a class X1.2 x-ray intensity. Today's event also was associated with a coronal mass ejection, but the ejected mass was much more diffuse and difficult to spot. Nevertheless, it appears a second above-average velocity coronal mass ejection is now in-transit to the Earth. That disturbance will probably impact the Earth sometime on 10 June (early to mid UTC hours, perhaps). The impact of this second disturbance should be a bit less vigorous than the first disturbance that is due within the next 24 hours, but it may still be strong enough to renew minor geomagnetic and auroral storming through 10 and part of 11 June. The approach of the first high-velocity shock front from yesterdays X2 solar flare associated coronal mass ejection is currently visible in the form of increased densities of energetic protons in space near the Earth. These protons are thought to be accelerated by the shock front of the disturbance as it sweeps through space. Currently, energetic protons are reaching densities capable of producing intensified levels of ionization in the polar ionospheres of the Earth. This type of increased ionization is known as Polar Cap Absorption (or PCA) and can have a devastating impact on high frequency radio signals that propagate through the polar regions of the ionosphere. These energetic protons are not expected to decrease back toward background levels until after the shock front of the disturbance passes the Earth on 08 June. Most solar observatories are reporting that Region 9026, although it has lost some of it's areal coverage, has not changed signficantly in magnetic structure and is probably still capable of producing major M or X class solar flares. The frequency of minor and major flares from this region will probably begin to slacken off a bit over the next few days unless renewed growth occurs.

  • Woo-hoo! I'll be flying from Canada to France on monday. The cross-atlantic routes go up to 50-60 latitude. I'm gonna ask for a seat on the left side.

    Get forecasts at UofAlaska, Fairbanks [alaska.edu]
    ---

  • The last time the sun was in it's peak flare zone like this was back in 1989. The sun has 11 years cycles of activity. It took out most of quebec's power grid almost 6 million people were without power for awhile.

    Later
  • Ummm - no.

    If the Van Allen belts shielded us 100%, there wouldn't be any auroras to be seen, would there? The magnetic field of the planet causes "holes" in the belts approaching the poles.

    So, your dose will be higher if you're in Nome or Thule tonight, but folks down in Brasilia shouldn't let this get to them (although folks down in Rio have the South Atlantic Anamoly to worry about).

  • Anytime you have a moving electrical current (as in solar wind) crossing a magnetic field (as in Earth) it generates heat. (Works the other way also.) Thus the Aurora is formed from the superheating of a portion of the atmosphere. During a period of global warming this can't help our heat balance to have these large solar storms boosting the heat balance of the planet. Of course, the superheating of polar gases may have some effect on the makeup of the atmosphere (as in burn off the nasties, or create more ozone.)

  • 2000-06-07 17:35:59 Major Solar Storm Coming (articles,space) (rejected)

  • hmm (Score:4)

    by Yarn ( 75 ) on Thursday June 08, 2000 @02:41AM (#1016731) Homepage
    Solar wind is mostly ionised particles.
    This is a solar wind storm, right?
    Therefor, its an ION STORM...

    ARRAGHG... KEEP THOSE CLICKING GREEN THINGS AWAY FROM ME...
    *is carted off to daikatana rehab, and prescribed 2h of CounterStrike per night*
  • Hence, *approximately* 100%. That wasn't meant as a cynical jab at the orignial posting, but as a typical approximation by physicists. (Long years of bad habits die extremely hard!)

    Eric
  • There is a nice basic article about this CME and how CMEs affect the magnetosphere at spacesciences.com [spacesciences.com]. The New York Times is also carrying an AP story [nytimes.com] on the solar storm.
  • http://www.sec.noaa.gov/Aurora/index.html

    BTW, looks like D.C. has a fair shot at this one.
  • The last time the solar flares came, the blue gun on my PC monitor started flickering (I think it was the blue gun... all the white changed to yellow). Last night, it started again. I know next to nothing about electronics, but... is there even a remote chance there could be some causal relationship? And no, I don't mean to suggest that my monitor is causing solar flares...

  • I think the Athlon storms are faster, heat up the earth more, and are brigther. 8-O

    Sorry, sorry, I know, I know...

  • Watch it in Real-Time (Score:5)

    by rjb73 ( 198222 ) on Thursday June 08, 2000 @03:44AM (#1016737) Homepage
    The ISTP [nasa.gov] site has a nice page [nasa.gov] that links to all the instruments that will be studying this in real-time. For those who want to watch the Ionosphere, try the SuperDARN Ionospheric Radars real-time page [jhuapl.edu]. (Gratuitious Plug - This is my page).

  • Solar Status Monitor (Score:3)

    by The Dev ( 19322 ) on Thursday June 08, 2000 @06:40AM (#1016738)
    Perhaps now would be a good time to add my Solar Status Monitor [maj.com] as a slashbox.
  • Yep, gonna have GREAT propagation on the 28 MHz HF band today, tomorrow, and Saturday. Since we're already at the high point in Solar Flux, 10 meters has been open for long-distances, and with an event like this I should be able to get Europe, Middle East and Africa with about 100 watts power. Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.

  • Picture (Score:4)

    by yellowstone ( 62484 ) on Thursday June 08, 2000 @03:50AM (#1016740) Homepage Journal
    Check out http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap00 0608.html [nasa.gov] for a very cool false-color X-ray image of the sun showing "[an] active region generating the explosive events"

    Also watch http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ [nasa.gov] every day for the astronomy picture of the day (almost always interesting, and sometimes root window art)

  • Where around MPLS? Though I have an unobstructed view of the sky from my backyard, there are a lot of streetlights polluting the view.

    LetterJ
  • Actually, the last time a solar storm this scale happened, in 1989 IIRC, people flying over the north pole (such as from northern Europe to the east coast of the USA) got something like 10,000 X-Rays worth of radiation. The van allen belts don't cover the areas around the magnetic poles.

    Disclaimer: IANAAP (I Am Not An Astrophysicist)
  • Isn't this the reason behind these freakin hot summers of the last 6 years??
    • 2000-06-06 14:51:37 Existing laws fight spam (articles,spam) (rejected)

    Same thing happened to me, and to lots of folks. I still read Slashdot, I still like Slashdot, but I've begun to feel that it's drifing away from being the community that folks once saw in it. It's little things like this that get to you after a while.
    Me, I've started reading another techie type news site, kuro5hin [kuro5hin.org] - it doesn't have quite the readership of Slashdot, but it does have interesting conversations, timely stories, and story moderation.
    Here's hoping to getting a story posted :)

  • So... (Score:1)

    by JKR ( 198165 )
    Does anyone ever get hit by these? I've not noticed any problems in the past.
  • With all the weather tracking going on out in space, NASA knows when to launch or not launch a rocket. When are they going to invest in a weather system for Earth to let me know when I should take an unmbrella or not?

  • A long time ago - probably before you were born - there was a similar solar-storm causing parts of the US power-grid to go offline for weeks!

  • This is going to be very useful (Score:3)

    by pieterh ( 196118 ) on Thursday June 08, 2000 @01:46AM (#1016748) Homepage

    The timing is just perfect, now I can blame all the new bugs in the monster project we're making on solar interference. The last excuse, e-mail viruses, no longer works. "Oh, it's normal that you can't see more data on that screen - IBM patented the More button, Microsoft patented the scroll bar, and there's an X-Class solar flare in progress!!

  • Front passed just before 9AM UTC (Score:3)

    by Bryan Andersen ( 16514 ) on Thursday June 08, 2000 @01:54AM (#1016749) Homepage
    The ACE Real Time Solar Wind [noaa.gov] plots jumped from around 500km/s to 800km/s just before 9AM UTC (+0000). I can't wait to see what it will look like tonight.
  • The equipment in spacecraft already knows how to handle all the "little stuff" as far as space weather goes, so they only really watch for the big things like solar flares and such. Last time I checked, we do have pretty good systems in place on Earth for tracking hurricanes, storm fronts, etc.

    As far as needing an umbrella, I like to remember a saying my dad often used when I was little: "You will not melt and you will eventually dry out."

  • Aw, I'll better close the barn and fetch the cows then...
  • Here in Upstate NY, it's been interfering with local radio broadcasts. Mostly just annoying static, not enough to completely drown out the broadcast.

  • if you have interest in these things (Score:3)

    by boing boing ( 182014 ) on Thursday June 08, 2000 @02:51AM (#1016753) Journal
    as I do, you might enjoy this site. [crl.go.jp] It gives a better format in my opinion that NOAA, but it is essentially the same data.
  • "You contradict yourselves" what?? Who do? That's like when the Martians come to visit, and see some KKK people saying "Black people are scum" and some black people saying "KKK people are scum", and saying "You humans! You flat out contradict yourselves! How hypocritical". I didn't notice the guy beating up on any nuclear industry. Did you?

    You are taking a bunch of people with different opinions, deciding to call them all by a certain name, and then complaining that all the people with that name don't think the same. Big surprise there!

    Please could you also point us to some evidence to back up your assertion about the radiation? I'd be interested to see. Are you arguing that solar flares are dangerous, or that nuclear plants aren't?? I'm assuming the former, since a pro-nuclear argument would be a bit off-topic. Should I be staying inside in my lead suit then? ;)
  • Even if these storms don't produce any dire consequences for power systems, etc., the fact that they've been happening for a couple days now means there should be some extended opportunities for people at higher lattitudes to see some nice auroral displays.

    If you'd like to read more science-related stories stop by bottomquark [bottomquark.com], my science slash site.

    GrnArrow
    http://www.bottomquark.com

  • Ahh - physicist approximations - I remember those (grin).

    Yeah, if you look at the difference between the particle and ray density Out There during one of these storms, and compare with Down Here, it's pretty well filtered - the magnetic field, and the atmosphere, do a good job.

    And we do get these neat-o light shows....

  • "The geomagnetic storm could cause power and satellite failures." or the flimsy plot of a thousand different sci-fi books/tv shows/movies...
  • The last solar maximum (1989) brought down Hydro-Quebec and the entire power grid in eastern canada ... affected the U.S. as well since a lot of Hydro-Quebec's power goes to New York City

    The CME also affects SatNav and can throw readings off by miles and miles.

    I used this fact in the flimsy plot of SlateWiper, a lurid technothriller I wrote several years ago that is now published on FatBrain (Actually they have been re-named Mighty Words) at http://www1.fatbrain.com/asp/bookinfo/bookinfo.asp ?theisbn=EB00001047

  • Are we going to see auroras ?

    What is the minumum latituded ?
    I am in D.C.

    OverLord
  • Elevated radiation is significant for them.

  • It does wonders for CATV, so I can imagine how broadband cable customers are going to suffer...
  • It took out most of quebec's power grid

    that's nothing! we had hull breaches on decks 7, 11, and 13, plasma venting in shuttle bay 2, warp core breaches, and shields down to 40%. Helm was restored in a few minutes, but until we reversed the polarity of the neutrino flow, shield harmonics were destabilized and were allowing tachyon bursts to pass which of course took us back to before the ion storm and the whole cycle repeated itself except one member of the crew, Mr. Chipotle, had an increasing sense that we'd been here before. We put him in the brig but he escaped up one of the Jeffrey's tubes and saved us.

    take this seriously, folks, it could happen to you :)

  • The Solar and Helliospheric Oberservatory [nasa.gov] (SOHO) has really some really nice observations [nasa.gov] of this CME, including movies made with various instruments. SOHO orbits at the L! point so that it can make constant observations of the Sun.

    I'm sure glad that they were able to pull SOHO [nasa.gov] out of its problems [nasa.gov], it sure does make some nice observations.

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