Big Solar Storm Will Hit Earth Friday

CBC News ^

[webber]

Big solar storm will hit Earth Friday Oct 24th

BOULDER, COLO. - A strong geomagnetic storm is expected to hit Earth on Friday. Scientists say it may knock out electrical grids and satellite communications.

A "sunspot cluster" said to be 10 times the size of Earth could damage satellites and power grids, as well as cable TV, pager and cellular telephone service.

Forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., say it is one of the largest sunspot clusters in years.

Larry Combs, a forecaster at the federal Space Environment Center in Boulder, says the sunspot cluster released a chunk of the sun's outer atmosphere early Wednesday morning.

NASA's Goddard Space Center says the sunspot clusters produce a "coronal mass ejection" – an explosion of gas and charged particles from the outermost layer of the sun's atmosphere.

In 1997, television networks in the U.S. were affected when satellites used to beam programming to local stations were knocked out of service.

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Written by CBC News Online

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[Davea]

Thw worst storm since 1859??

Space storm coming to Earth CFCN.ca

POSTED AT 5:48 PM Thursday, October 23

Scientists are warning about a strong geo-magnetic storm expected to hit the Earth tomorrow.

Forecasters say the storm has the potential to affect everything from cell phones and power grids to other satellite communications.

The disturbance is rated a G-3 storm. The highest is G-5.

NASA scientists are calling it the perfect space storm.

A largest cluster of sunspots caused an explosion on the sun, sending a massive amount of gas and charged particles into space towards Earth.

Scientist say they expect it to be the worst solar flareup to be felt on Earth since a storm in 1859. That storm caused telegraph wires to short out across North America and Europe.

[Davea]

Url for the abovehttp://www.cfcn.ca/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/B/20031023/spacestorm?brand=generic&hub=&tf=CFCNPlus/generic/hubs/frontpage.html&cf=CFCNPlus/generic/hubs/frontpage.cfg&slug=spacestorm&date=20031023&archive=CFCNPlus&ad_page_name=&nav=home&subnav=fullstory

[Davea]

For your viewing pleasure..http://sec.noaa.gov/rt_plots/kp_3d.html

[Action-America]

  

I'm Prepared!

[stands2reason]

without FR there would be NO internet.

Oh please.....everyone knows What's Better is the backbone of the net...

Current Top Ten
1. Getting $1,000,000
2. Calvin and Hobbes
3. Sex
4. Flirtation
5. Love
6. A Sense of Humor
7. The Earth
8. Water
9. Monty Python & the Holy Grail
10. Women in Red Dresses

[stands2reason]

Oh, I bet you'd look cute in that outfit.....

[stands2reason]

Dent, is that you?

[BulletBobCo]

Scientists say it may knock out electrical grids and satellite communications.

Not to worry. Jeremy is on standby with the backup power!

[heleny]

I'm above you in Colorado ..., and I have never yet seen the Aurora Borealis.

I saw it once only in Southern California in November 2001, but I didn't realize what I had seen until I got info from either FR or a link to spaceweather from a FR thread. I was near Los Angeles (34N, south of CO's latitude), and all I saw was an unusual red glow that spread low and very wide above the northern mountains.

Good luck trying to see one this time!

[heleny]

That's NOT the sunspot that sent out the CME. THAT sunspot has done absolutely NOTHING all day, amazingly enough. There's a sunspot BARELY coming into view on the lower left part of the sun that has been launching massive flares all day. NONE of these sent CMEs towards earth. THERE'S NO SOLAR STORM COMING, FOLKS.

To which sunspot are you referring? Spaceweather provides the sunspot numbers, which are very helpful when one can't point out "THAT sunspot."

Sunspot #484 (in the middle of the picture in post #60) sent out the CMEs on 10/22/03 which are scheduled to arrive Friday, 10/24/03, and possibly cause a geomagnetic storm on earth with aurora visible down to the "middle latitudes."

Sunspot #486 (at the edge of the sun in post #60) sent out CMEs on 10/23/03, but obviously they weren't pointed at us. They might arrive 10/25/03 but won't cause trouble.

I think the news wasn't clear that the aurora/storm would be from 484 but the irrelevant newer flares were from 486.

[ATOMIC_PUNK]

Don't forget the Sunblock SPF 5,000,000,000

[milemark]

Al Queada claims credit.

[Amelia]

Even spaceweather.com changed its analysis from this morning when it realized its error...look at the site.

I don't think they did....read the whole thing...particularly 2nd paragraph below from Space Weather:

SOLAR EXPLOSIONS: Solar activity is high. An intense X5-class solar flare erupted today (Oct. 23rd at 8:35 UT) from sunspot 486 near the sun's southeastern limb. The explosion hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. See the movie. Although the CME was not Earth-directed, it could deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field as early as Oct 24th (although the 25th is more likely).

Another CME was already en route when this morning's explosion occured. Pictured right, it was launched on Oct 22nd by an explosion near sunspot 484. Forecasters expect it to arrive on Oct. 24th and possibly trigger a strong geomagnetic storm. Sky watchers at middle latitudes should be alert for auroras.

[Amelia]

Check this out - you are considered to be in the middle latitudes! :-)

[kinsman redeemer]

Can you hear me NOW?!

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Oh, I bet you'd look cute in that outfit.....

I bet you say that to all the boys.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Even spaceweather.com changed its analysis from this morning when it realized its error...look at the site.

You stopped reading too soon. Here is the paragraph that comes after their ammended report:

Another CME was already en route when this morning's explosion occured. Pictured right, it was launched on Oct 22nd by an explosion near sunspot 484. Forecasters expect it to arrive on Oct. 24th and possibly trigger a strong geomagnetic storm. Sky watchers at middle latitudes should be alert for auroras.

Something definitely is headed our way. How big, we'll have to wait and see.

[_Jim]

and cellular telephone service.

Same old stupid news media ruse - our local TV stations were touting this same, untrue aspect ...

[_Jim]

You and anyone else technically minded might appreciate this:

- - - - -

From: http://lasp.colorado.edu/stp/publications/galaxy.html

Space Environmental Conditions During April and May 1998: An Indicator for the Upcoming Solar Maximum

D.N. Baker, J.H. Allen, S. G. Kanekal, and G.D. Reeves

Introduction

At approximately 2200 UT on 19 May 1998, the PanAmSat Corporation's Galaxy 4 spacecraft experienced a failure in its attitude control system (Automatic Pointing Control, APC). Unfortunately, the backup system also had failed, either at that same time or earlier, so that the operators were unable to maintain stable Earth-link [Space News, 25-31 May 1998, p. 3]. The Galaxy 4 spacecraft is a heavily used communication satellite at geostationary orbit; its sudden failure caused the loss of pager service to some 45 million customers as well as numerous other communication outages [USA Today, p. 1, 21 May 1998].

Analysis by PanAmSat and Hughes continues as to the exact cause of the Galaxy 4 failure [Space News, ibid., p. 18]. Whenever there is an operational problem with space hardware, it is advisable to examine as broadly as possible the space environmental conditions prior to and at the time of the problem. Using a wide array of space data sets, we have analyzed the magnetospheric and solar wind conditions during the April-May 1998 period. There was large solar and magnetic activity in early May, but geomagnetic conditions were very quiet by 19 May. Moreover, the Galaxy 4 failure occurred when the satellite was in the afternoon local time sector. Thus, surface charging of the spacecraft was not a likely factor. However, strong evidence is found that highly relativistic electron [HRE] fluxes were substantially elevated above average conditions for a period of about two weeks prior to the 19 May failure of Galaxy 4.

...

Summary and Discussion

We have considered the space environmental conditions in April and May of 1998. We find evidence of highly disturbed solar, solar wind, and geomagnetic conditions in late April and early May. The combination of coronal mass ejections, solar flares, and high speed solar wind streams led to a powerful sequence of solar wind drivers of magnetospheric processes at the Earth. The result of the compounding solar wind disturbances was to produce a deep, powerful, and long- lasting enhancement of the highly relativistic electron population throughout the outer terrestrial radiation zone. Previous such enhancements of the HRE population have been shown to have caused spacecraft anomalies due to deep dielectric charging.

Based on the above results, it is possible that the Galaxy 4 spacecraft problem was caused, or at least exacerbated, by the energetic electron environment at geostationary orbit during May 1998. Given the long, intense duration of electron flux enhancement seen from early to late May of 1998, the circumstances were quite conducive to produce deep dielectric, (or bulk) charging [see Vampola, 1987].

In attempting to associate a given spacecraft anomaly with the space environment, it is often asked why did only this particular spacecraft have a problem? Why did not other spacecraft also fail at the same time? Moreover, since the typical geostationary orbit spacecraft has experienced numerous other HRE enhancements, why did it not fail earlier during another event?

...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

PanAmSat's investigation revealed however:


From: http://www.panamsat.com/_media/company/pdf/PAS_FINANCIAL_FINAL.pdf

The 1998 Annual Report


SPACECRAFT DEVELOPMENTS

...

During 1998, three of the Company's satellites
experienced what is believed to be a related anomaly
in their on-board SCPs. On May 19, 1998, all customer
services on Galaxy IV were permanently lost
when the satellite experienced an SCP failure that
caused the satellite to rotate and lose its fixed orientation
with the Earth. The spare SCP was unavailable
due to an earlier unrelated event that had not been
previously detected. The Company submitted an
insurance claim for this loss and received $162.5
million in 1998. For non-pre-emptible customers,
service was restored with the use of capacity on
other Company satellites, including capacity previously
used by certain customers whose service
was subject to preemption and terminated in
accordance with their agreements. Subsequently,
two others satellites (Galaxy VII and PAS-4) had
primary SCP failures but are operating normally on
back-up systems.

An investigation of the anomaly, conducted by
Hughes Space and Communications Company, an
affiliate of the Company and the manufacturer of
the three affected satellites, identified electrical
short circuits involving tin-plated relay switches as
the most probable cause of the SCP failures. The
report concluded that the short circuits can occur
only when several factors are concurrently present.
Of the 14 satellites owned by PanAmSat that were
constructed by HSC, five satellites (including PAS-4
and Galaxy VII) are the same model spacecraft as
the affected satellites, and have tin-plated relay
switches similar to the switches on the failed
SCPs. No assurance can be given that additional
SCP failures will not occur.

[reagan_fanatic]

"Damn those Bush tax cuts! If it weren't for them, this wouldn't be happening!"

The libs will probably blame Reagan for this.