Posted on 01/09/2014 7:45:34 AM PST by tired&retired
STORM WARNING: NOAA forecasters estimate a 90% chance of geomagnetic storms on Jan. 9th when a CME is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. The speed of the solar wind around Earth could spike to 700 km/s (1.6 million mph) shortly after the impact, sharply compressing Earth's magnetosphere. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.
http://spaceweather.com/
HUGE SUNSPOT, CHANCE OF FLARES: The source of the incoming CME is AR1944, one of the largest sunspots of the current solar cycle. The active region sprawls across more than 200,000 km of solar terrain and contains dozens of dark cores. The largest could swallow Earth three times over. AR1944 is circled in this Jan. 9th snapshot from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.
The sunspot is almost directly facing Earth. This makes it a threat for geoeffective eruptions. NOAA forecasters estimate an 80% chance of M-class flares and a 50% chance of X-flares on Jan. 9th.
You made me laugh. Thanks! :D
So, that’s how the Enterprise got around the universe.
Does this mean that if you have a metal hip that you shouldn’t run a marathon that day?
Over here, it’s too dark to see anything.
The level of sunspot activity has nothing to do with flares. The Carrington event occurred during low sunspot activity...and if it were to happen today (instead of 1859)...you certainly wouldn't call it hype.
Per Wiki:
From August 28, 1859, until September 2, numerous sunspots were observed on the Sun. Just before noon on September 1, the English amateur astronomers Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson independently made the first observations of a solar flare. It caused a major coronal mass ejection (CME) to travel directly toward Earth, taking 17.6 hours. Such a journey normally takes three to four days. This second CME moved so quickly because the first one had cleared the way of the ambient solar wind plasma.
In June 2013, a joint venture from researchers at Lloyd’s of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) in the United States used data from the Carrington Event to estimate the current cost of a similar event to the world economy at $2.6 trillion (£1.67tr).
Ice cores contain thin nitrate-rich layers that can be analyzed to reconstruct a history of past events before reliable observations; the data from Greenland ice cores was gathered by Kenneth G. McCracken and others. These show evidence that events of this magnitudeas measured by high-energy proton radiation, not geomagnetic effectoccur approximately once per 500 years, with events at least one-fifth as large occurring several times per century. These similar but much more extreme cosmic ray events however may originate outside the solar system and even outside the galaxy. Less severe storms have occurred in 1921 and 1960, when widespread radio disruption was reported. The March 1989 geomagnetic storm knocked out power across large sections of Quebec.
Solar cycle 10 was the tenth solar cycle since 1755, when recording of solar sunspot activity began. The solar cycle lasted 11.3 years, beginning in December 1855 and ending in March 1867. The maximum smoothed sunspot number (monthly number of sunspots averaged over a twelve-month period) observed during the solar cycle was 97.3, and the minimum was 5.2. There were a total of approximately 406 days with no sunspots during this cycle.
full on tin foil hat crap.
Ok, today is the 10th.....did I miss it?
Or is the other half of the world fried
to a crisp?
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