Posted on 06/08/2011 10:51:58 AM PDT by mgstarr
Greenbelt - A "dramatic" solar flare has erupted from the sun, which has created spectacular images captured by NASA's observatories. Scientists believe it won't have a significant impact on Earth, but some communications satellites could be disrupted. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory viewed spectacular images from the sun on Tuesday. The sun unleashed a medium-sized M-2 solar flare, a coronal mass ejection (CME) and an S1-class radiation storm from sunspot complex 1226-1227.
At 1:41 a.m. (EST), all of the solar Heliophysics System Observatory missions witnessed the large cloud of bright plasma and high energy particles that came up and then fell down, which covered an area nearly half of the solar surface. The CME is moving at 1,400 km/s and may have an effect on the Earth’s magnetic field on the nights of Jun. 8 and Jun. 9.
This is the largest blast of radiation on a level that has not been experienced since 2006. The Space Weather Prediction Center issued a statement Tuesday where it forewarned of a G1 (minor) to G2 (moderate) levels of Geomagnetic Storm activity Wednesday.
“A prompt Solar Radiation Storm reached the S1 (minor) level soon after the impulsive R1 (minor) Radio Blackout at 0641 UTC,” said the National Weather Service. “The Solar Radiation Storm includes a significant contribution of high energy (>100 MeV) protons, the first such occurrence of an event of that type since December 2006.”
NASA scientists haven’t made any dire statements concerning the severity of these solar flares, but according to Agence-France Presse, officials have warned that Earth’s communications satellites could be disrupted.
“Generally it is not going to cause any big problems, it will just have to be managed. If you fly from the United States to Asia, flying over the North Pole, there are well over a dozen flights every day,” said principal investigator for the cosmic ray telescope for the effects of radiation (CRaTER).
“People operating satellites would keep an eye on this, too, because geomagnetic storming can interfere with satellites in various ways whether it is the satellite itself or the signal coming down from the receiver.” The largest solar storm to hit Earth was back in 1859 when the solar flares disrupted telegraph lines and there were numerous fires reported in Canada, the United States and Europe. There were news reports of people gathering on street corners and some “old women being frightened to death.”
women and minorities hardest hit
ping...
While there is no actual dispute concerning the root causes of the solar flare epidemic, a small fringe of conservative fanatics oppose the establishment of such a body, preferring instead to give tax breaks to billionaires and trillioniares and to end Medicare as we know it.
I’m sure global warming somehow causes solar flares too!! ;-)
With credit/debit card data from every cash register transaction in America being transmitted via satellite, it’s just a matter of time before it all goes dark.
In the next world war space assets will be targeted first and the walls will come crumbling down.
Float some TSA nazis up there—that’ll take care of it.
Looks to me like the amount of solar mass ejected far exceeded the mass of the earth...
on the Fox and Friends morning show today...
Brian Kilmeade: It knocked the power out at my house for about a minute.
Unseen stagehand: Bush’s Fault!
Just think each one of those bursts are larger than our planet.
Talk about lighting a fart!
Bit the AGWIdiots insist that our cars are a bigger influence on climate than the Sun. :-(
Did you see that comet or whatever it is on the right hand side at 2:38 seconds? Compare that to the size of the Sun or our Earth? Good grief it’s huge!
Exactly!
What is that on the right side of the Video at 2:38?
“Did you see that comet or whatever it is on the right hand side at 2:38 seconds? Compare that to the size of the Sun or our Earth? Good grief it’s huge!”
Yeah! I went back and looked for it because I didn’t think anything of it the first time I watched the video. So that was a comet, that absolutely vertical line with a bright spot at the bottom of it?
I don’t know what it is... My guess is a Comet, but I cannot say that for sure.
The effects are only at night???? Who knew!!
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BTW, what is the URL of the (longer) video you asked about?
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I've also heard them explained as reflections off of the cross-wires supporting the sun-occluding disk on satellites that block out the sun itself to show just the corona. Another explanation given is saturation of single rows of sensors on the CCD imaging arrays.
Probably an imaging artifact -- not a comet or the mythical "Nemesis planet"...
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