Massive Solar Flare Headed This Way

Umm from the timestamp on that article it must have already made it here.

Takes what 4 min for light to get from the sun to us?
 
Uncle Ferd got his tin-foil hat on, Granny says is like inna Bible where it says `bout the stars fallin' from heaven - we gonna get zapped an' den we all gonna die...
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Geomagnetic storm activity increasing, catastrophe looming?
February 18, 2011 - Geomagnetic storm: A true monster storm has the potential to wreak havoc on a global scale, knocking out communications systems, endangering satellites and astronauts and causing perhaps trillions of dollars in damages.
The sun let loose its most powerful eruption in more than four years Monday night (Feb. 14), disrupting radio communications in China and generating concern around the world. But it could have been a lot worse, experts say. Despite its strength, Monday's solar storm was a baby compared to several previous blasts, and it provides just a hint of what the sun is capable of. A true monster storm has the potential to wreak havoc on a global scale, knocking out communications systems, endangering satellites and astronauts and causing perhaps trillions of dollars in damages.

The sun's activity cycle is ramping up, so more storms will likely be coming our way over the next few years. The sun has grown more active over the last several months after rousing from a quiet period in its 11-year weather cycle last year. That's not to say the big one is imminent, experts say — but you never can tell. And analysts warn that with humanity more dependent than ever on the high-tech equipment that can be affected by a solar storm, the stakes are higher than in the past. "Even if this is a really lackluster solar cycle — as it looks like it's shaping up to be — that doesn't mean you can't have a real bell-ringing event," said Joe Gurman of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, project scientist for the agency's sun-studying STEREO spacecraft.

The roots of solar storms

Solar storm events come in several different flavors. Solar flares are intense bursts of radiation that send waves of photons streaming toward Earth. The scale measuring their strength has three general categories – Class C, Class M and Class X – with Class X flares being the most powerful. Monday's Valentine's Day solar flare registered a Class X2.2 on that scale. Other storms, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), are large clouds of plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the sun's surface, sending lots of particles our way.

Both flares and CMEs have the same root cause — a disruption of the magnetic field in the sun's outer atmosphere. And both events can affect life here on Earth. Major flares, for example, can interfere with satellites, causing disruptions in GPS and high-frequency radio communications that can last from a few minutes to a few hours. These impacts are felt almost immediately, since it only takes light about 8 minutes to travel from the sun to Earth. "It's like the sun is a giant noise source," said Bob Rutledge, head of the forecast office at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center. "It can disrupt anything that depends on a link between the ground and satellites."

But the most severe damage comes from powerful CMEs. The particles from these outbursts take longer to reach us — up to three days or so. But when they get here, their interaction with Earth's magnetic field can cause massive "geomagnetic storms," which have the potential to wreak long-lasting havoc on power and communications infrastructure around the globe. "They can cause a lot of trouble," Rutledge told SPACE.com. Last year, NASA launched its so-called Solar Shield project to serve as an early-warning system for serious space weather events.

Powerful impacts possible
 
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Yea, Uncle Ferd out inna side yard with his fire-retarded suit gettin' ready to do battle with the solar flare breathin' dragon...
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Solar storm barreling toward Earth this weekend
13 July`12 — The space weather forecast for Earth looks a bit stormy this weekend, but scientists said not to worry.
A solar storm was due to arrive Saturday morning and last through Sunday, slamming into Earth's magnetic field. Scientists said it will be a minor event and they have notified power grid operators, airlines and other potentially affected parties. "This isn't the mother of all anything," said forecaster Joe Kunches at the government's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo. "We don't see any ill effects to any systems."

The storm began Thursday when the sun unleashed a massive flare that hurled a cloud of highly charged particles racing toward Earth at 3 million mph. It was the sixth time this year that such a powerful solar outburst has occurred; none of the previous storms caused major problems. In severe cases, solar storms can cause power blackouts, damage satellites and disrupt GPS signals and high-frequency radio communications. Airlines are sometimes forced to reroute flights to avoid the extra radiation around the north and south poles brought on by solar storms.

In 1989, a strong solar storm knocked out the power grid in Quebec, causing 6 million people to lose electricity. Juha-Pekka Luntama, a space weather expert at the European Space Agency, said utility and navigation operators "will certainly see something but they will probably find ways to deal with any problems" from the incoming storm. The storm is part of the sun's normal 11-year cycle of solar activity, which is supposed to reach peak storminess next year.

There's a bright side to stormy space weather: It tends to spawn colorful northern lights as the charged particles bombard Earth's outer magnetic field. Shimmering auroras may be visible at the United States-Canada border and northern Europe this weekend, Kunches said.

Source
 
Granny always gets an ache in her knee when there's a solar storm...
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System could warn of solar storms
15 August 2012 - Solar flares can send high energy particles streaming towards Earth
A warning system with the potential to protect against the devastating and costly effects of a massive solar storm could be on the horizon. That's according to research published in the journal Astroparticle Physics. Solar flares can be accompanied by the release of high energy particles - a coronal mass ejection - towards Earth. Ensuing huge geomagnetic storms could wreak havoc on electronic systems, satellites, power grids and communication networks. Data from the study, led by Prof Ephraim Fischbach and Prof Jere Jenkins of Purdue University, suggest that the rate of breakdown of radioactive materials changes in advance of solar flares.

They hope they can use this to develop a system that could predict when a potentially devastating geomagnetic storm might take place. This would allow authorities to adopt protective measures, such as shutting down satellites, at times of most risk. But it is unclear how long such a system would take to develop. Prof Jenkins told BBC News: "We're still developing algorithms to pinpoint what type of flare and magnitude it will be." Other physicists are more sceptical of the conclusions made by the researchers. Commenting on the findings, Dr Peter Soler, a particle physicist at the University of Glasgow, said: "I do not believe the actual decay rate is being affected by this."

Radioactive elements - such as uranium - are unstable and break down over time. As they do this they release energy in the form of radiation. Physicists have long held the view that the rate of breakdown - or decay - for any given radioactive substance is constant. A chance event led Prof Jenkins to doubt this. He was watching television coverage of astronauts spacewalking at the International Space Station. A solar flare erupted and was thought to pose a risk to the astronauts. On checking equipment in his laboratory, he was surprised to discover that the rate of radioactive decay changed before the solar flare. The current report follows years of painstaking research designed to strengthen this initial observation. "It's the first time the same isotope has been used in two different experiments at two different labs, and it showed basically the same effect," Prof Fischbach said.

It is unclear how solar particles affect rates of radioactive decay, but Prof Jenkins asserts that "either neutrinos are affecting the decay rate or perhaps an unknown particle is". Neutrinos are subatomic particles; huge numbers of them are spewed out during a solar flare. One of the biggest geomagnetic storms on record was the Carrington event of 1859. According to Prof Fischbach: "There was so much energy from this solar storm that the telegraph wires were seen glowing." He pointed out that "because we now have a sophisticated infrastructure of satellites, powergrids and all sorts of electronic systems, a storm of this magnitude today would be catastrophic. Having a day and a half warning could be really helpful in averting the worst damage". According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, there are around 1,000 satellites in operation above the Earth's atmosphere. Satellites are used for communication, weather forecasting, navigation, research and reconnaissance. Solar activity fluctuates over an approximate 11-year cycle. Activity is likely to peak over the next year or so and could bring strong solar storms.

More BBC News - System could warn of solar storms

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Galaxy cluster's 'starburst' surprises astronomers
15 August 2012 - Astronomers have seen a huge galaxy cluster doing what until now was only theorised to happen: making new stars.\
Most galaxy clusters - the largest structures in the Universe - are "red and dead", having long since produced all the stars they can make. But cluster formation should, according to theory, include a cooling phase, resulting in blue light from new stars. Writing in Nature, researchers say they have seen evidence that the enormous Phoenix cluster makes 740 stars a year. The cluster, some seven billion light-years away, is formally called SPT-CLJ2344-4243 but the researchers have renamed it for the constellation in which it lies. It contains the mass equivalent to about two and a half million billion Suns.

While astronomers are getting better at spotting these huge conglomerates of galaxies - the Planck space telescope has reported notable hauls of them - there is still much to learn about how they form and what goes on within them. Just as planets are thought to form by the eventual coalescence of matter that is around after star formation, galaxy clusters are believed to form through colossal galactic mergers - another event that sharp-eyed astronomers have managed to get a picture of, on more than one occasion.

Blue blazes

Theory has it that in addition to a central black hole, clusters have a great deal of gas at their cores, sprayed from nearby galaxies and supernovae, that should eventually cool down enough to draw together and start the process of star formation anew. Yet astronomers have only ever seen red, dead regions at clusters' cores; the lack of evidence for the idea was called the "cooling flow problem". But a find by the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica, with follow-up observations by the space-based Chandra X-ray Observatory, found one bright cluster among several new finds. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology led an international team that went on to use a total of 10 different telescopes worldwide, each looking at different colours of light, to characterise the surprise Phoenix finding. The Phoenix cluster showed particularly bright emission in the ultraviolet range of the spectrum, corresponding to hundreds of young stars and suggesting that 740 were being born each year. "Not only is it the most X-ray luminous cluster in the Universe, but the central, most massive galaxy is forming stars at an unmatched rate," said Michael McDonald of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US.

The findings shed light on the interplay between the supermassive black holes that appear to be at the centres of all big galaxies, and the vast tracts of gas that surround them. These black holes are the source of a kind of tug-of-war - their gravity draws material inward, but they also release huge amounts of energy in the form of jets that tend to heat the gas and keep it at a distance. The researchers believe that the black hole at the core of the Phoenix cluster's central galaxy must not be putting out much energy at the time we now see it. Commenting on what he called the "tussle" between the central black hole and the surrounding material, the UK's Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees, from the University of Cambridge, said: "It's not able to hold that infall of gas at bay, and this gas is falling in and forming stars. "That's a very extreme phenomenon, that's what's so special about this system. This is a fascinating step toward putting this picture together of the tussle."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19266284
 
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Observing solar braids to figure out how the sun works...
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NASA Telescope Spots Solar Braids
January 24, 2013 - Five or 10 minutes is not a long time when it comes to a NASA mission, but it was long enough for NASA's High Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C, telescope to capture the sharpest images ever taken of the sun's scorching atmosphere.
The sun's surface is about 5,000 degrees Celsius, but its atmosphere can be millions of degrees hotter. Scientists, including Hi-C mission principal investigator Jonathan Cirtain, are working to figure out what energy source is heating the solar atmosphere. "This high temperature atmosphere is where space weather is initiated and where energetic events like flares and coronal mass ejections can originate," Cirtain told reporters during a NASA teleconference. "So understanding the energy supply for the corona has implications across the stellar structure and heliophysics, in general."

NASA launched a suborbital rocket carrying the telescope last July. Hi-C snapped 165 images of an active region in the sun's corona, and the telescope could see features in the solar atmosphere that were only 150-kilometers across. NASA says that is the equivalent of spotting a coin from six kilometers away. The new images show magnetic loops that twist around each other to resemble braids, and when the braids unravel, there are simultaneous increases in energy emission. This supports a theory developed 30 years ago that the magnetic field could be supplying the energy that fuels solar flares and coronal mass ejections.

8C0373E7-E659-44B5-ADDC-9A5AD33A3251_w640_r1_s_cx0_cy1_cw0.jpg

NASA's High Resolution Coronal Imager, or Hi-C, telescope captured the highest-resolution images ever taken of the sun's million-degree atmosphere, the corona.

An astrophysicist at the Lockheed Martin Advanced Technology Center in California, Karel Schrijver, said solar storms have an effect in space and on Earth. "Our society is increasingly dependent on space technology for navigation and communication, and we can't even imagine living without electricity," said Schrijver. "Yet, the largest of these solar storms could cause enormous problems and may damage large parts of the power grid or disable the navigation systems."

NASA astrophysicist Cirtain, who is based at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, says he would like to see a satellite version of the Hi-C telescope. He says scientists' ability to forecast space weather could mitigate solar storms' economic and societal impacts. The Hi-C findings are published in the journal Nature.

NASA Telescope Spots Solar Braids
 

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