Free Republic

The sun has spat out two clouds of plasma in the past two days, which might trigger beautiful aurora displays observable much farther south than usual. The two coronal mass ejections (CMEs), eruptions of charged particles from the sun's upper atmosphere known as the corona, burst from the sun on Aug. 14 and 15 respectively, according to the U.K. forecaster Met Office (opens in new tab). As the CMEs cross the 900,000-mile (150 million kilometers) distance between the star and our planet, they might cannibalize each other, according to SpaceWeather.com (opens in new tab), creating a single super powerful CME....

After analyzing data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and several other observatories, astronomers have concluded that the bright red supergiant star Betelgeuse quite literally blew its top in 2019, losing a substantial part of its visible surface and producing a gigantic Surface Mass Ejection (SME). This is something never before seen in a normal star’s behavior. Credit: NASA, ESA, Elizabeth Wheatley (STScI)Our Sun routinely blows off parts of its tenuous outer atmosphere, the corona, in an event known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). However, the Betelgeuse SME blasted off 400 billion times as much mass as a typical CME!...

STEVE (short for "strong thermal velocity enhancement") is a long, thin line of hot gas that slices through the sky for hundreds of miles. The hot air inside STEVE can blaze at more than 5,500 degrees Fahrenheit (3,000 degrees Celsius) and move roughly 500 times faster than the air on each side of it, satellite observations have shown. Whereas the northern lights occur when charged solar particles bash into molecules in Earth's upper atmosphere, STEVE appears much lower in the sky, in a region called the subauroral zone. That likely means solar particles aren't directly responsible for STEVE, Live Science...

The spot is so big it's changing the way the sun vibrates, according to spaceweather.com. If the dark spot hurls a blob of plasma at Earth, it could disrupt our magnetic field, affecting GPS and communication satellites orbiting close to Earth as well as airplane navigation systems. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center issued a forecast for an unsettled geomagnetic field around Earth on Aug. 6 and 7, which could means auroras, though whether it becomes a full-blown solar storm is not yet clear. The telltale vibrational changes showed up in a helioseismic map near...

The explosion was spotted on July 31 at around 2309 UT and Earth-orbiting satellites registered a long-lasting C9.3-class solar flare. "The intensity is probably an underestimate because it was partially eclipsed by the edge of the sun. Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) saw hot debris flying away from the blast site," spaceweather, which tracks the solar activity, reported. While the explosion was powerful, experts have predicted that Earth is not in the line of fire from the Sun. Scientists are expected to get a view of the active region later this week as it comes to sight. With the sun’s...

Most estimates have relied heavily on information gleaned from Icelandic sagas, but since these were only written down centuries after the fact and talk about things like glittery one-footed assassins, researchers have wisely taken them with a grain of salt.But the new study, published today in the journal Nature, has pinpointed the Viking presence in North America to an exact year: 1021

It has been a busy time for solar activity. Back in March of 2022, Earth was hit by separate geomagnetic storms, according to government weather agencies in the U.S. and the U.K. Though the geomagnetic storms likely didn't cause any harm, they brought into focus the potential harm that could come from more powerful storms in the future. Then earlier this month, a G1-class geomagnetic storm hit the Earth, causing bright auroras over Canada. The only problem is that nobody saw this storm coming until it was quite late. Five days ago, a giant sunspot and filaments on the solar...

The crack in the magnet field was created by a rare phenomenon called a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) from the Sun. CIRs are large-scale plasma structures generated in the low and mid-latitude regions of the heliosphere – the region surrounding the Sun that includes the solar magnetic field and the solar winds – when fast and slow-moving streams of solar wind interact. Like coronal mass ejections (CMEs), CIRs get flung out from the Sun towards Earth and can contain shockwaves and compressed magnetic fields that cause stormy space weather, which usually presents itself to us as pretty aurorae. This one...

A MINOR solar storm struck Earth over the weekend, sparking displays of the Northern Lights in the Arctic. The storm was caused by a volley of radiation known as a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), according to space weather trackers. “Forecasters aren't sure why. The prime suspect is an unexpected CME embedded in the solar wind." G1 storms can cause weak power grid fluctuations and have minor impacts on satellite communications. “Expect unsettled to stormy conditions for the next 48-72 hrs. “High latitude #aurora chasers should get good shows with sporadic views at mid-latitudes.

A massive sunspot has been spotted on our sun that looks directly at Earth The sunspot doubled in size over just a 24-hour period Experts say it could possibly send out medium-class flares in the near future. A dark sunspot that is facing directly toward Earth doubled in size in just a 24-hour period and could possibly send out medium-class flares in the near future. Tony Phillips, the author of SpaceWeather.com, wrote on Wednesday: ‘Yesterday, sunspot AR3038 was big. Today, it's enormous.’ And it is now said to measure three times the size of Earth.

The sun flexed its considerable magnetic muscles today (June 13), and two solar spacecraft captured the show on video. Earth's star unleashed a long-duration solar flare early this morning, blasting high-energy radiation into space for about three hours. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which has been studying the sun from Earth orbit since 2010, observed the dramatic event in multiple wavelengths. The flare registered as an M3.4, putting it in the "medium" class of solar outburst. It was strong enough, however, to cause temporary radio blackouts(opens in new tab) in the Asia-Pacific region here on Earth. (Scientists put powerful solar...

Amplified aurora displays are possible if a coronal mass ejection of charged particles emerges from the "mixed-up" sunspot AR3006, which pointed its flaring blast toward Earth Tuesday (May 10) at 9:55 a.m. EDT (1355 GMT). The flare was caught on camera by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and spurred a radio emission alert by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), amid a reported shortwave radio blackout in the Atlantic Ocean region. AR3006's polarity is the reverse of what scientists are expecting, which makes the sunspot "interesting and dangerous," SpaceWeather.com stated. (Sunspot polarity is governed by the current solar cycle.) "If...

A sunspot that "awoke from the dead" last week and erupted with a medium-size solar flare, along with a mass ejection of plasma, also lit up the northern skies in glowing lights. One stunning image of the effect showed the aurora seeming to rain through the clouds above Iceland. Rays from this aurora shone near Goðafoss Waterfall, which is about about 45 minutes from Akureyri, the second-largest city in Iceland. The shining northern lights were generated by a moderate-sized solar storm, associated with an explosion of solar particles witnessed by satellites. The sunspot that exploded was poetically dubbed "dead" because...

On Sunday, a strong shortwave radio blackout occurred over southeast Asia and Australia due to a solar flare hurled from the sun. Seems like Solar activity is again picking up pace after a geomagnetic storm hit earth. It is interrupted that the sun is likely to erupt with more flares this week. The X1 class flare was accompanied by a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from a cluster of active sunspots that have produced significant flaring prior to appearing on the eastern limb of the sun. CMEs are huge bubbles of radiation and particles from the sun. They explode into space...

The explosion comes courtesy of a dead sunspot called AR2987.... The sunspot explosion released loads of energy in the form of radiation, which also led to a coronal mass ejection (CME) — explosive balls of solar material — both of which could spur more intense northern lights in Earth's upper atmosphere. The material in that CME is likely to impact Earth on April 14... The idea of a "dead" sunspot is more poetic than scientific, said Philip Judge, a solar physicist at the High Altitude Observatory at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), but the convection of the sun...

A solar storm will sweep across the Earth Wednesday night, raising prospects of dazzling Northern Lights visible as far south as Chicago while prompting airlines and electric-grid operators to step up monitoring of the potentially damaging geomagnetic activity. Solar eruptions—called coronal mass ejections—burst from the sun in two waves Monday and are building up enough energy to potentially become a level 3 geomagnetic storm when it hits, according to Rob Steenburgh, a space scientist with the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center. Solar storms, like hurricanes, are ranked on a five-step scale, with one being the weakest and five the strongest....

Composite image of solar prominence on 31 August 2012. (NASA/SDO/GSFC) The dazzling northern lights could light up the skies as far south as the northern United States after the detection of 17 solar eruptions blasting from a single sunspot, two of which are headed straight to Earth. The two Earth-directed eruptions have merged into a "cannibal coronal mass ejection" and are barreling toward us at 1,881,263 miles per hour (3,027,599 kilometers per hour). When it crashes into the Earth's magnetic field on the night of March 30, the result will be a powerful G3 geomagnetic storm, according to The National...

GEOMAGNETIC STORM WATCH (G3-CLASS): Strong G3-class geomagnetic storms are possible during the early UT hours of March 31st when a Cannibal CME is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. During such storms, naked-eye auroras can descend into the USA as far south as, e.g., Illinois and Oregon (geomagnetic latitude 50o). North Americans should be alert for auroras after local nightfall on March 30th. The hours before dawn on March 31st are probably best for Europeans. Aurora alerts: SMS Text. X-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Earth-orbiting satellites have just detected an X1.3-class solar flare (March 30 @ 1737 UT). The source is active...

A powerful solar storm is set to hit Earth on Thursday (March 31) with spectacular aurora displays accompanying it after the sun fired nearly 20 flares from a single sunspot in just two days. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned that two coronal mass ejections (CMEs), spat out from the overactive sunspot AR2975, on Monday (March 28), are heading toward our planet and might trigger a geomagnetic storm rated as G3 on NOAA's five-point scale.

A Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) from the Sun has begun to impact the Earth, prompting NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) to issue a warning that a G1-class geomagnetic storm has arrived with a K-index of 5. In the latest update from the SWPC, they say the area of impact will primarily be poleward of 60 degrees Geomagnetic Latitude. In this region, weak power grid fluctuations can occur on Earth. In space, minor impact on satellite operations are possible. Elsewhere, Mother Nature may light up the skies more south than usual; aurora could be visible at high latitudes across the...