Sun delivers yet another shot at Earth

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/space/10/30/solar.storm/index.html ^ | 03/10/30 | CNN

[Truth666]

As Earth's magnetic field weathered a strong solar shock wave this week, the sun unleashed another powerful flare that could herald more geomagnetic storms on Thursday.

"It's like the Earth is looking right down the barrel of a giant gun pointed at us by the sun...and it's taken two big shots at us," said John Kohl of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

[Truth666]

When statistical anomalities start being the normal case.

[RightWhale]

A couple satellites have burned out. The aurora last night was nothing special, and there was nothing this morning, either. Maybe such a large swarm of charged particles overloads the magnetic field so the display can't be other than diffuse.

[Truth666]

Which ones ?

[RightWhale]

Both Japanese, oddly.

[evets]

[Dead Corpse]

Could be co-inky-dink, but my 10/100 Netgear switch at the house blew out on me. I'm using the last two available ports on my cable router to get at least my main two PC's on the 'Net.

[dandelion]

I thought about that today - "what ifs" start getting wierd when you have no historical data to compare. Like, what - if we get a massive, repeated eruptive "flame-out", or we go supernova for no apparent reason?

I mean, if I knew that was coming, I'd go ahead and have a slice of cheesecake...

[Truth666]

The last post in this page has a creationist explanation for these statistical anomalies

[RightWhale]

If the sun explodes--no problem. Maybe somebody is building a star ship to launch a tiny baby as the sole survivor where it will be adopted by a farm family on another planet. The baby's sole weakness will be to kryptonite cheese.

[Tench_Coxe]

Reminds me of Larry Niven's short story, "Inconstant Moon".

[isom35]

that sun has some nerve. we ought to fire some kinda missile
back at it to teach it a lesson.

[Buggman]

Alright, who pissed off the sun?

[theFIRMbss]

>"It's like the Earth is looking right down the barrel of a giant gun pointed at us by the sun...

Binoculars must
not ever be used to look
at the Sun! But you

can project the view
from binoculars onto
a wall or paper.

Current sunspots are
so big, I could easily
see two big clusters...

[Qwinn]

"Reminds me of Larry Niven's short story, "Inconstant Moon"."

That was an excellent story. Niven's always been one of my favorites.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

"Alright, who pissed off the sun?"

Democrats blame Bush.

Alright, someone had to say it. It was inevitable.

Qwinn

[sergeantdave]

Has Al Gore the robot blown his circuits yet? Haven't heard from him in weeks.

[Lazamataz]

I thought about that today - "what ifs" start getting wierd when you have no historical data to compare. Like, what - if we get a massive, repeated eruptive "flame-out", or we go supernova for no apparent reason? I mean, if I knew that was coming, I'd go ahead and have a slice of cheesecake...

Uh, yeah. This could really blow. If the sun burps REALLY HARD, it could strip something vital out of the atmosphere. That would totally suck.

[per loin]

Kp index is pegged at 9 again.

[Lazamataz]

"I have not seen anything like it in my entire career as a solar physicist. The probability of this happening is so low that it is a statistical anomaly," he said in a statement Thursday.

What if the sun just spews like this for a while? What does that mean for us?

[Lazamataz]

I LOVE Larry Niven. But I never read that story. Looks like

We're all gonna die!!!!

so I won't have the chance, either. Give me a summary of the story.