Largest Sunspot In a Quarter Century Spews Flares 46
schwit1 writes: The largest sunspot seen in about a quarter century has produced another powerful X-class flare today, the sixth in less than a week. "This was the sixth X-class solar flare from NOAA 2192, a record for the number of X-class flares generated by a single group so far this solar cycle. It was also the fourth X-class flare since last Friday, continuing a period of intense flaring activity. This sunspot group has grown again a bit, and maintains its magnetic complexity. A degradation of the HF radio-communication was observed over South-America, the Caribbean, and West-Africa." The last sentence is referring to some radio communications blackouts that have occurred in these areas because of the flares.
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It's only giant alien space ships that drive straight into the sun thus causing solar flares. I have seen it on William Shatner's "Weird or What?" tv show.
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Good to see it (Score:2)
I'm glad we didn't enter into a maunder minimum like folks were nervous about.
Having no summer to grow food worldwide would be pretty devastating for many people.
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Does one BIG sunspot count for hundreds of little ones?
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I don't think sunspots can actually count - regardless of their size.
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Of course not. They have no fingers.
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...Yet.
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I'm glad we didn't enter into a maunder minimum like folks were nervous about.
I, for one, was hoping for a *extended* Maunder Minimum. Because global warming and stuff.
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Even in the maunder minimum the growing was fine, harsher but fine. But considering during that minimum there was large solar flare events, it doesn't mean that we're not entering into one anyway.
Quarter Century (Score:2)
Why not just say "In the last 25 years"?!
Re:Quarter Century (Score:4, Funny)
Is that what a quarter century means?
Wow!
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Why not just say "In the last 25 years"?!
Or 788400000000 milliseconds
Re: Quarter Century (Score:2)
Re: Quarter Century (Score:2, Insightful)
Sweet I'm going to switch the wording on my resume that I keep updated just in case:
-Has been a Unix/Linux systems administrator for over one-fifth of a century!!
Much better.
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Because it implies a range. A "about a quarter century" is (approximately) 25 years +/- 12.5 years (12.5 years to 37.5 years). Whereas 25 years is (approximately) 300 months +/- 6 months.
Or just because. Poetic license.
Remember not to ever split your infinitives.
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What is there to discuss?
This is yet another sensetionalist blurb article: Oh no! A large sunspot! Communication might be affected!!! Once you discuss one of these useless stories, there is nothing left to discuss.
Yes, there is a sunspot. They occur all the time. So what?
Re:16 posts containing banal "jokes", 0 of any val (Score:4, Insightful)
So this is what Slashdot has become.
No, this is what Slashdot has always been. I started regularly reading Slashdot around 2000, and back then there were posts just like yours decrying the state of Slashdot today, pining for some golden age. And yet, looking at the archives, not much had changed.
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I do not disagree with you.
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So this
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A degradation of the HF radio-communication
part, I was puzzled. If that was a reference to a network close to Sun, they should not use HF on satellites. Then I read the whole sentence and felt sorry for the need of explanation...
Doctor Who (Score:1)
Didn't the latest episode of Doctor Who tell us this already?
Sun spots earth. Pukes. (Score:2)
Ok, maybe I'm hineininterpretierung this a bit
Clearly Global Warming (Score:1, Funny)
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