The Sun Explodes – But Not To Worry…
June 8, 2011
The title is purposefully sarcastic to highlight the ‘just’ of what the pros are saying regarding today’s never before seen explosion on the sun. Not that the sun has never released huge solar flares or coronal-mass-ejections, it does it quite frequently… it’s that this one in particular very effectively illustrates the risk that we face here on earth if the sun decides to blow off an extraordinary solar flare and/or a billowing explosion of electro-magnetic particles of radiation in our direction.
The huge solar flare which exploded between 0630 and 0930 UTC during June 7, will likely lead to a radiation storm later during June 8 here on earth.
“The large cloud of particles mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it covered an area of almost half the solar surface,” said a NASA statement.
“In a day or so from now we are expecting some of that material to impact us here on Earth and create a geomagnetic storm.”
“The Solar Radiation Storm includes a significant contribution of high energy protons, the first such occurrence of an event of that type since December 2006.”
The resulting geomagnetic storm could cause some disruption in power grids, satellites that operate global positioning systems and other devices, and may lead to some rerouting of flights over the polar regions.
The aurora borealis (Northern Lights) and aurora australis (Southern Lights) will also likely be visible in the late hours of June 8 or 9, NASA said.
Quote from helioviewer.org
“I’ve never seen anything like this before – spectacular”
Solar Flare Event Risk To Power Grid
Solar SuperStorm of 1859, It Could Happen Again”
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Solar Cycle 24 SkyRockets
April 14, 2011
The 24th solar cycle, solar cycle No. 24, has been one of the four ‘latest’ since records began tracking the approximate 11 year cycles of sunspot activity.
On several occasions NASA scientists had adjusted and pushed forward their estimate of the progression of cycle No. 24, but during the month of March, and the ongoing activity during April, the sunspot activity has vaulted the cycle progression back to the front lines.
As evidenced in the sunspot activity chart above, the sun has exploded with activity, enough to raise an eyebrow while saying to yourself, ‘Whoaa’.
As the sun boils up increased numbers of sunspots, we here on Earth need to be wary of the resultant solar flares and CME’s that are often hurled in our direction.
These enormous belches of radiation have the potential of changing life as we know it, in just a matter of minutes.
An X-class solar flare can reach the Earth in just 8 minutes (CME’s, Coronal Mass Ejections, can take days). If an X-class flare, or CME, is of sufficient magnitude (keyword: sufficient magnitude), it could bring down our electrical power grid and end life as we know it… for a long period of time.
Do some of your own search-engine research on the ‘Carrington Event’ of 1859. If that were to happen today…
We will be keeping a more observant eye on the sun now that it has ‘awakened’ as we ride the ramp up to solar maximum.
Being a survival blog, we bring risk awareness to the forefront, particularly those that interest us – which includes this one. Scientists clearly say that a repeat of the Carrington Event is not a matter of ‘if’… but… you know the rest.
So, at least consider it as part of your overall preparedness ‘insurance’ plans. Imagine what life would be like for a year without electricity. It’s a worst case scenario.
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300,000 mile Flaming Plasma Solar Tentacle
February 18, 2011
A huge tentacle of burning solar plasma stretching 300,000 miles long and lifting as high as 100,000 miles above the surface of the sun has captured the interest of many observers.
The enormous spectacle first appeared during February 17 and has been twisting, dissipating, and re-energizing in size ever since. It is still visible today.
The magnitude of the event is amazing in that it dwarfs the size of the Earth in comparison.
The sun has recently called attention back to itself once again, as it fired off a 4-year record breaking X2-class solar flare a few days ago, and immediately hurled a CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) directly towards the Earth.
At the same time, a new large sunspot region 1160/1161 has developed and threatens to produce flares and CME activity over the coming days as it too begins to point directly toward the Earth.
To those that are interested in watching the activities of the sun, it has been very active of late, while solar-cycle 24 itself remains behind schedule and is overall less active than originally forecast, so far. We’ll see what the months ahead bring.
Pete Lawrence of digitalsky.org.uk has captured a gallery of stunning photos of the sun while using his own solar-scope equipment, including a startling image of the entire sun immediately during one of the breakdowns-dissapations of the monster tentacle.
Full Resolution image of the sun, with tentacle dissipation as captured by Pete Lawrence
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Staring Down the Barrel at Sunspot 1158
February 13, 2011
Do you like staring down the barrel of a gun? This is a fairly good analogy for what the Earth is facing at this moment, as sunspot region 1158 points directly at the planet.
Dr. Tony Philips of spaceweather.com calls the region, “Behemoth”. “The active region is now more than 100,000 km wide with at least a dozen Earth-sized dark cores scattered beneath its unstable magnetic canopy. Earth-directed eruptions are likely in the hours ahead.”
The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center has issued an X-Ray Flux Alert measuring R2 on the NOAA space weather scale.
Translation: Limited blackout of HF radio communication on sunlit side, and degradation of low-frequency navigation signals.
Further Translation: Not that big of a threat to you and I, at the moment.
Given the dramatic size of the sunspot region, and even though the current progression of solar cycle 24 is lower than originally forecast, nearly any given sunspot region, even this one, could still pose a threat to our way of life.
The Carrington event of 1859 should always serve as a reminder of our high-tech vulnerability to a large eruptive radiation event from our neighbor, 93 million miles away.
We’re ‘sitting ducks’ so to speak, over the next few days, and will be again at some point in the near future as sunspots rise and sink into the conveyor region of the sun.
This region is only shooting C-class flares at this time, and all looks safe so far.
We haven’t kept records of such events like the Carrington event long enough to know how often they happen. All we can do is watch the show, and be reasonably prepared to make it through life should we lose the conveniences of modern technology for a time.
Update,
Sunspot Region 1158 shot off the biggest flare of the year so far, a category M6.6 aimed directly at earth.
The ultraviolet flash of radiation sent radio bursts of electromagnetic energy which was detected on earth minutes later (It takes 8 minutes at the speed of light to reach the earth), and can be seen in the image below as captured from the SDO, Solar Dynamics Observatory.
The flare also released a CME, Coronal Mass Ejection, which will reach the earth on February 15.
X2 Flare!
Update, 15-Feb,
BANG!
The strongest solar flare in 4 years was unleashed from sunspot region 1158 on February 15 as it fired off a X2.2 flare!
The ‘x-class’ is the highest scale in the rating system used to classify solar flares.
C (1 – 9) Small; with few noticeable consequences here on Earth
M (1 – 9) Medium; they can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth’s polar regions
X (1 – 9) Big; can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms
The NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center has been very active while releasing reports and warnings regarding the recent flurry of activity.
Outlook For February 16-22
R1 (Minor) and R2 (Moderate), with possible R3 (Strong) Radio Blackouts are expected through 21 February.
The X2 flare was also associated with a large CME (Coronal Mass Ejection) which can be seen in the following image. It is startling to realize the size of the CME while comparing to the diameter of the sun within the white circle of the image.
The CME is expected to arrive at Earth as early as February 16, Wednesday, and may produce vivid Aurora displays, even at lower regions that normally do not see the Aurora.
Stay tuned…
Update, 16-Feb,
From spaceweather.com,
Less than a week ago, sunspot 1158 didn’t exist. Now it is wider than the planet Jupiter and unleashing the strongest solar flares since Dec. 2006. Click on the arrow to witness the amazing 5-day development of this active region, courtesy of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory:
video of sunspot 1158 development
Update, 17-Feb,
Video of the X2 flare and CME. This is a shorter video version that is trimmed to just the flare and CME event (loop it for effect), originally available at spaceweather.com.
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Sunspot 1153 Brilliantly Explodes!
February 8, 2011
Sunspot 1153 has been transitioning the earth-facing surface of the sun for about a week, and today at 1852 UT it exploded into a brilliant wavelength of light, so bright that it looks to have overloaded the SDO systems which can be seen in one of the slides.
One image from the SDO AIA channel 0304 shows a huge chunk of plasma the size of several earth’s being hurled from the surface of the sun in dramatic fashion.
The sun has been exceptionally quiet with regards to exploding solar flares since the latter part of 2010 when it went through a few periods of exciting activity. The current solar cycle has been downgraded several times lately, while the current expectations are for less activity overall during this cycle 24.
Even if solar cycle 24 produces fewer sunspots than originally forecast, any one of them can be just as destructive as though during a very active cycle. It’s only a matter of time before we experience another Carrington event.
View a 400 x 400 pixel loop of the exploding sunspot 1153 here
size: 900K
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Magnetically Charged Spots Suddenly Dot the Sun
January 21, 2011
base images credit: SOHO/MDI
The sun has suddenly generated an enormous sunspot region, all in the vicinity of sunspot 1147. The sun is currently in solar cycle 24, which is now due to peak sometime during 2013. The solar sunspot activity has progressed in spurts of activity, although it has been much quieter than expectations lately.
Sunspot 1147 was originally very large by itself, however during the past 24 hours, lots of emerging spots of activity have been popping up around it.
Dr. Tony Philips from SpaceWeather.com and science writer for NASA reports, “A rash of small spots is rapidly emerging near the main core of sunspot group 1147, and this could herald an increase in solar activity.”
The reason he states that this is interesting is because of the magnetic characteristics.
He goes on to say, “It is an evolving jumble of magnetic polarities, with positive (+) pressing against negative (-) in many places. These are favorable condition for magnetic reconnection and solar flares.”
The daily bulletin from the Solar Influences Data Center in Belgium states, “The sunspot group located near the central meridian has been growing. An additional bi-polar node popped up. A sunspot group in a phase of growth has a relatively higher possibility to flare.”
The image above loops through 8 of the SDO telescope channels, each of them looking at different temperature regions.
The images below show sunspot 1147 in more detail. The size of the overall region would fit 30 Earth’s! There are an amazing number of looping magnetic points, more than I’ve seen on a sunspot group in a long time.
It may produce flares, and is pointing our way over the next several days, but no one knows how powerful they could be. The current thinking are for C-class flares, which really won’t affect your life. But the sun has been known to surprise us now and again.
base image credit: SOHO/MDI
From a preparedness standpoint, the risk is all about our electrical power, and the systems that we depend upon that in turn require electricity.
Just because the current sunspot activity is low does not mean that earth could not be hit by a debilitating solar flare. The Carrington Event (1859), had it occurred during modern times, would have likely wreaked havoc on our societies and would have probably brought down many technological systems that we depend upon in our infrastructure, some we could not live without due to the millions who depend upon them to sustain systems that bring food and water, and more.
Our modern electrical grid for example has not been put to the test from a solar radiation impact event similar to 1859. At some point though, it will be put to the test. There is no argument from the scientific community on that. The question is, will it remain standing after it happens. Many think not. The modern world would be kicked back a century or two, for a period of time that some say could last for years.
In the mean time, observing solar events like the current sunspot 1147 phenomenon should remind us all of the sometimes unpredictable behavior of our life-giving ball of fire in the sky.
Update, sunspot 1147 loop
Update, the region is rotating away, slowly, while C-class flare have been fired off. M-class flares remain a threat. Amazing magnetic loops.
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Erratic Sunspots Smash NOAA Predictions
January 17, 2011
The current solar cycle (solar cycle 24) has confounded many observers, perhaps even the NOAA Solar Cycle Prediction Panel who had come to a consensus that the solar cycle presently underway would peak sometime during early 2013.
In fact, the current prediction model for this month of January, 2011, has it packed with between 50 and 55 new sunspots. The problem is… where are all the sunspots?
During early 2010 and again during mid 2010, it appeared as though the sunspot activity was rapidly increasing, even to the point of catching up with the current NOAA prediction model. During the last 4 months however, the sunspot activity has dramatically diminished.
Records indicate that only 14 sunspots (plus or minus depending on the chosen database) appeared during December 2010, while January 2011 has only produced 9 sunspots as of this writing (more than half way through the month), only 16 percent of expected!
Sunspot number prediction from http://solarscience.msfc.nasa.gov
If the current trend continues, we may be in store for some cold weather in our future. Many scientists agree that a decrease in sunspot activity will translate to cooler weather here on earth.
There is a lag effect with the cause-and-effect of low sunspot numbers and cool weather. That affect, coupled with the current ‘La Nina’ underway in the equatorial Pacific ocean – affecting North America with colder weather this January, could be signaling a very cool Spring and Summer of 2011.
Time will tell of course, but if this becomes reality, it could badly affect the already dangerous situation of the current world food supply disruption from recent weather-related damaged crops (Russia, Australia, Brazil, Pakistan…).
This weather related food crop damage coupled with the specter of higher inflation, all point towards much higher food prices in our future.
Solar Cycle Progression and Prediction – Current
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