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Could The Sun Set Off The Next Big Natural Disaster?
A medium-size solar flare with a coronal mass ejection, captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory on June 7, 2011. (credit: NASA/SDO)It can take a long time to clean up from natural disasters. New Orleans still had remnants of Katrina damage years after the storm barreled through. Hundreds of thousands of people are still homeless in Haiti, more than a year and a half after its earthquake. Areas of Japan may be off limits for years due to the earthquake/tsunami/nuclear disaster at Fukushima.
But as bad as these events might be, they are at least limited geographically. But that probably won’t be true when it comes to a severe solar storm, say scientists in a new study in Space Weather. Before I go into that, though, let’s first review what I mean by Read more…
Giant “Surfing” Waves Roll Through Sun’s Atmosphere
Surfer waves — initiated in the sun, as they are in the water, by a process called a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability — have been found in the sun’s atmosphere. Credit: NASA/SDO/Astrophysical Journal LettersSurf’s up on the Sun! Our favorite gnarly spacecraft, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has caught conclusive evidence of classic “surfer waves” in the Sun’s atmosphere. But these waves trump ‘Hawaii Five-O’ surfing big time. These solar waves are about the same size as the continental U.S, and spotting these waves will help our understanding of how energy moves through the solar atmosphere, known as the corona.
Just like a surfing wave on Earth, the solar counterpart is formed by Read more…
Solar flaring warning issued
A solar wind stream flowing from the indicated coronal hole could reach Earth on or about June 4th. . Credit: SDO/AIA.
Cape Town – The Space Weather Centre has warned that the sun is undergoing some instability, which has implications for electronic communications.
“There is a very active area on the sun as rotated onto the invisible solar disc. This active area has got the potential for more flaring for the next five to six days,” space weather forecaster Kobus Olckers of the Space Weather Warning Centre at the Hermanus Magnetic Observatory told News24.
He said that communications and electronic systems might be affected.
“The internet could be a little slower for the next week or so and especially long distance communications.”
Polar routes
Scientists recognize three major Read more…
Claim: NASA Hiding Approaching Doomsday Space Event
Super solar flare [Photo courtesy of NASA]
NASA and the European Space Agency have been warning the world for two years about the approaching catastrophes that may unfold during late 2011 through 2012.
Few have been listening.
Calling it a “once in a lifetime super solar storm event,” NASA warns that killer solar flares can slam the Earth knocking out the Northern Hemisphere’s technological infrastructure and kicking everything back to the level of the late 1800s.
Russia too has voiced concern. And now the eminent astrophysicist, Alexey Demetriev [“PLANETOPHYSICAL STATE OF
THE EARTH AND LIFE“], claims what is happening is worse—much worse—than what NASA and the ESA have admitted: Read more…
Solar Storms Season Heating Up
Sunspots — cooler regions fraught with intense magnetic fields — now regularly dot the surface of the sun, and the star has unleashed several powerful flares in recent months, including a Feb. 14 blast that was the most powerful outburst in more than four years. All signs suggest that the sun has shaken itself out of its slumber, researchers say. After three years in a deep solar sleep of historic proportions, the sun is starting to wake up.
In 2008, the sun plunged into its least active state in nearly a century. Sunspots all but vanished, solar flares subsided and the star was eerily quiet. Quiet spells on the sun are nothing new. They come along every 11 years or so, as part of the sun’s natural activity cycle. But this latest solar minimum lasted longer than usual, prompting some researchers to wonder if it would ever end.
This year has started off with a bang, as sunspots are crackling with activity. Earth-orbiting satellites have detected Read more…
FIRST X-CLASS FLARE OF THE NEW SOLAR CYCLE:
Sunspot 1158 has unleashed the strongest solar flare in more than four years. The eruption, which peaked at 0156 UT on Feb. 15th, registered X2 on the Richter scale of solar flares. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded an intense flash of extreme ultraviolet radiation, circled below:
movie formats: 5 MB gif, 1.3 MB iPad, 0.6 MB iPhone
X-flares are the strongest type of solar flare, and this is the first such eruption of new Solar Cycle 24. In addition to flashing Earth with UV radiation, the explosion also hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) in our direction. The expanding cloud may be seen in this movie from NASA’s STEREO-B spacecraft. Geomagnetic storms are possible when Read more…
M CLASS Solar Flare Headed Toward Earth
Sunspot 1158 has just unleashed the strongest solar flare of the year, an M6.6-category blast @ 1738 UT on Feb. 13th and it is heading straight for Earth.
The eruption appears to have launched a coronal mass ejection (CME) toward Earth. It also produced a loud blast of radio emissions heard in shortwave receivers around the dayside of our planet. Amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft recorded these sounds. Stay tuned for updates!
Solar activity increased sharply over the weekend with the eruption of an M6.6-class solar flare from behemoth sunspot 1158. The blast produced a strong burst of radio waves heard in the loudspeakers of shortwave receivers around the dayside of our planet, and it appears to have hurled a faint coronal mass ejection toward Earth.
Sunspot 1158 is growing rapidly (48 hour movie) and crackling with M-class solar flares. The active region is now more than 100,000 km wide with at least a dozen Earth-sized dark cores scattered beneath its unstable magnetic canopy. Earth-directed eruptions are likely in the hours ahead.
The remains of old sunspot complex 1147-1149 are rotating over the eastern limb today. Although the region is in an advanced state of decay, it’s not dead yet. During the late hours of Feb. 11th, a plasma bullet came rocketing out of the region’s unstable core. Watch the movie–but don’t blink, because it’s fast.
Movie formats: 21 MB Quicktime, 1.3 MB mpeg, 0.5 MB iPad. Credit: SDO
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