Geomagnetic Storm In Progress 110
shogun writes "The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports a strong geomagnetic storm is in progress. The shuttle, ISS and GPS systems may be affected."
They think this storm was caused by a weak solar flare on April 3rd. As you may expect, this has caused some unusually impressive northern lights since it started. What you may not expect is a photograph from Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi aboard the International Space Station showing the aurora from orbit. He apparently tweets a lot of pictures from space. He and his crewmates have taken over 100,000 pictures since coming aboard the ISS.
How long do these last? (Score:3, Interesting)
We're having cloudy weather (big surprise in the Seattle area), but it's sure be nice if this would last another 8-10 hours so we had a chance at seeing the aurora this evening. Unfortunately it's rare down here, and even rarer for it to coincide with a clear night...
Aurora Watch (Score:4, Interesting)
You can also subscribe to receive e-mail alerts about probable Northern Lights.
From the website: "AuroraWatch forecasts are made by examining the behaviour of the Earth's magnetic field strength, which is measured by ground-based magnetometers."
yay for govt! (Score:3, Interesting)
Stargate SG-1 (Score:2, Interesting)
Oh dear (Score:4, Interesting)
Contrary to what you seem to believe, TV/Internet and electricity are NOT all there is to life. Yes really.
Sure some slashdotters will die as they are exposed to the harsh rays of the sun when they wander outside for the first time but life will continue on. Some people with no healthy fear of hights will repair the cables and voila, everything be back to normal.
We had power failures before. They are no big deal. Go outside, empty the fridge and have a party. You know. With girls... oh okay, you can remain in the kitchen and look through the window at them, while you build a computer out of egg-cartons.
Mind you, I got a phone-jammer, that I sometimes use just for fun. It is amusing to see just how people react when their cell phone dies. Some really do react as if you cut the umbilical cord.
In a way, it would be an intresting social experiment. Cut the power/internet over the entire globe and see how each culture/area reacts to it. Why do some disaster areas result in looting and rioting and others remain calm? You can't really compare disasters but a global strike like this would be easier to compare. Would there be riots all over? None at all? Only in certain economic areas? Or (oh boy I am going to get it for this one) does it depend on race? Culture? Local leadership?