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Aurora Prospects 2012
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From http://www.iwo.ie/2012/01/24/m9-class-solar-flare/THE sun is bombarding Earth with radiation from the biggest solar storm since 2005
The solar flare occurred at about 11 pm EST Sunday and will hit Earth with three different effects at three different times. The biggest issue is radiation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado.
The radiation is mostly a concern for satellite disruptions and astronauts in space. It can cause communication problems for polar-traveling airplanes, said space weather center physicist Doug Biesecker.
Radiation from Sunday’s flare arrived at Earth an hour later and will likely continue through Wednesday. Levels are considered strong but other storms have been more severe. There are two higher levels of radiation on NOAA’s storm scale – severe and extreme – Biesecker said. Still, this storm is the strongest for radiation since May 2005.
he radiation – in the form of protons – came flying out of the sun at 150 million kilometres per hour.
“The whole volume of space between here and Jupiter is just filled with protons and you just don’t get rid of them like that,” Biesecker said. That’s why the effects will stick around for a couple days.
NASA’s flight surgeons and solar experts examined the solar flare’s expected effects and decided that the six astronauts on the International Space Station do not have to do anything to protect themselves from the radiation, spokesman Rob Navias said.
A solar eruption is followed by a one-two-three punch, said Antti Pulkkinen, a physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland and Catholic University.
First comes electromagnetic radiation, followed by radiation in the form of protons.
Then, finally the coronal mass ejection – that’s the plasma from the sun itself – hits. Usually that travels at about two or three million kilometres per hour, but this storm is particularly speedy and is shooting out at six million kilometres per hour, Biesecker said.
It’s the plasma that causes much of the noticeable problems on Earth, such as electrical grid outages. In 1989, a solar storm caused a massive blackout in Quebec. It can also pull the northern lights further south.
But this coronal mass ejection seems likely to be only moderate, with a chance for becoming strong, Biesecker said. The worst of the storm is likely to go north of Earth.
And unlike last October, when a freak solar storm caused auroras to be seen as far south as Alabama, the northern lights aren’t likely to dip too far south this time, Biesecker said. Parts of New England, upstate New York, northern Michigan, Montana and the Pacific Northwest could see an aurora but not until Tuesday evening, he said.
For the past several years the sun had been quiet, almost too quiet. Part of that was the normal calm part of the sun’s 11-year cycle of activity. Last year, scientists started to speculate that the sun was going into an unusually quiet cycle that seems to happen maybe once a century or so.
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What effect would this have on our weather ?0 -
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deaglan169 wrote: »visible through clouds right now in monaghan:D
Seen a glow behind clouds here too, not 100% sure if it was the aurora but maybe it was.
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Unlikey. spaceweather.com says the geoMagnetic storm that caused the auroas is over and the auroa alert has been cancelled for all but the most northern artic locations. It's a bugger too because there are actually clear skies over Clare tonight
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Unlikey. spaceweather.com says the geoMagnetic storm that caused the auroas is over and the auroa alert has been cancelled for all but the most northern artic locations. It's a bugger too because there are actually clear skies over Clare tonight
This site says otherwise, the line of viewing has been moving south the last hour or so. Keep peeking outside!
http://helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/Europe.html0 -
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looking at this ::
http://helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/Europe.html
There's a green blob over ireland, similar to what's in the atlantic under the red line. Graphic glitch or real ?
Im stuck inside at the minute and cant look out to see 0 -
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Rickylovesuall wrote: »looking at this ::
http://helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/Europe.html
There's a green blob over ireland, similar to what's in the atlantic under the red line. Graphic glitch or real ?
Im stuck inside at the minute and cant look out to see
Think that might be a glitch.. they do say that its a test product. Still will be nice to have another chart to compare with thanks 0 -
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