Image of asteroid (7482) 1994 PC1 taken during a flyby of Earth in 1997. (Sormano Astronomical Observatory)
Posted on 01/05/2022 4:29:43 PM PST by BenLurkin
Using information from ESA’s Cluster and Swarm missions along with measurements from the ground, scientists have, for the first time, been able to confirm that curiously named bursty bulk flows are directly connected to abrupt changes in the magnetic field near Earth’s surface, which can cause damage to pipelines and electrical power lines.
The magnetosphere is a teardrop-shaped region in space that begins some 65,000 km from Earth on the day side and extends to over 6,000,000 km on the night side... formed through interactions between Earth’s magnetic field and supersonic wind flowing from the Sun.
These interactions...comprise complicated magnetic field configurations and electric current systems. Certain solar conditions...can play havoc with the magnetosphere by driving highly energetic particles and currents around the system, sometimes disrupting space-based hardware, ground-based communication networks, and power systems.
The theory was that intense changes in the geomagnetic field driving geomagnetically induced currents are associated with currents flowing along the magnetic field direction, driven by bursty bulk flows, which are fast bursts of ions typically travelling at more than 150 km per second. These field-aligned currents link the ionosphere and magnetosphere and pass through the locations of both the Cluster and Swarm. Until now this theory had not been confirmed.
Malcolm Dunlop, from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in the UK, explained, “We used the example of a solar storm in 2015 for our research. Data from Cluster allowed us to examine bursty bulk flows – bursts of particles in the magnetotail – which contribute to large-scale convection of material towards Earth during geomagnetically active times, and which are associated with features in the northern lights known as auroral streamers. Data from Swarm showed corresponding large perturbations closer to Earth associated with connecting field-aligned currents from the outer regions containing the flows.
(Excerpt) Read more at scitechdaily.com ...
Lol! Sounds like one the side effects in a pharmaceutical commercial, followed by “oily discharge”
Have they forgot about solar flares? Empire State Building meteors whizzing by us? We need MORE fear porn to drive the masses mad.
Ask and ye shall receive...
A Giant Asteroid Bigger Than The Empire State Building Is About to Zip Past Earth
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-massive-asteroid-2-5x-the-height-of-empire-state-building-will-safely-pass-earth-next-week
I’m still concerned about being acid rained on every time I leave my home on a cloudy day.
Prine’s best song by far. “Acid Rain, Acid Rain.”
More fear porn.
Not to worry - we’ll all be dead from global warming climate change Covid variants before the next geomagnetic storm hits...
The stark fact of the matter, and this should actually scare everybody, is that if our science had advanced a hundred years or two hundred years faster, then we would have brought the electrical technology of the recent past or present straight into the jaws of the Carrington event of 1859.
Never heard of it?
The solar cycle that peaked in 1859-60 was fairly average in many ways, it did not set sunspot number records by any means. But it unleashed a solar flare around Aug 31 1859 that hit the earth on Sept 2nd. British astronomer Carrington was observing the Sun and made detailed notes on what he saw. At the time, coronal mass ejections were not well understood. But when the flare hit the earth, the relatively primitive telegraph technology was devastated. Charges ran along the lines and into the machines which short-circuited; fires broke out, and the system stopped working.
Now if that happened today with our complex electrical grids, those would be largely wiped out. An event of about 10% the intensity in 1989 knocked the Quebec and then the northeast US grids off-line for almost a day, but this Carrington event could do a lot worse damage than that. Imagine the state of our society if we had widespread weeks or months long power blackouts while the electrical companies scrambled to bring the grids back from all the damage caused. And think of the effects on data management. The FBI would have to start all over again building up a data base of conservative on-line posters, or whatever their main task is nowadays.
#10 No Free Republic!!
worth a visit to Suspicious 0bservers site to learn more about space weather.
Hope you have your bicycle and candles already/...
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