[soycd]

If the Sun had a heart, we could set the controls to it.

[ClearCase_guy]

Astronomy is not my field, but this jumps out at me:

It is so big that it can be seen in images of the sun from Earth's surface

A quick search tells me that the ancient Chinese observed sunspots with the naked eye in 364 BC. And sunspots were first observed telescopically in 1610.

Seeing a sunspot from the Earth's surface does not seem remarkable, but this one is "so big" you can actually see it! Perhaps part of the untold story here is that the sunspot cycle has been very quiet lately (possible sign of a Little Ice Age) and so sunspots of all sizes are not seen so frequently.

But perhaps that violates the Global Warming orthodoxy.

[Zeppo]

First solar storm from huge sunspot reaches Earth and knocks out satellites

I found nothing in that article claiming that any satellites were "knocked out".

Foolish headline writers screw up again...

[Amagi]

With regard to climate change:

variations in solar output, as well as eccentricities in the earth's orbit and axial rotation are driving factors many multitudes beyond variation in greenhouse gases, and more specifically the CO₂ green house gas which is an extremely miniscule greenhouse gas in volume compared to water vapor, and a far less potent greenhouse gas compared to, say, methane.

CO₂, however, being a sometimes by product of civilization and capitalism, is a target for the greedy Big Government Statists whose primary objective is to steal individual freedom.

[fwdude]

More solar alarmism. But we get this every few months now, it seems.

It makes for nice journalistic drama.

[airborne]

Give it a few days until the liberals and socialists explain how it’s the fault of Bush and global warming - and we need more government regulation to prevent further sun spot activity.

And a survey of college students who will sign a petition calling for more government regulation of same.

[Wuli]

we now have some redundancy in communications satellites, just for such occasions

[Hot Tabasco]

No mention of anyone being able to observe it at night.......

[Marie]

Not going to blame you for this, but this title is a straight-up lie. There were no satellites knocked out and it doesn’t even claim that in the article. In the article, it said that some amateur radios may have been messed up.