INCOMING CME: During the early hours of July 9th, a coronal mass ejection (CME) billowed away from new sunspot 1247. A preliminary analysis of data from NASA’s twin STEREO-A and -B spacecraft suggests that the flank of the CME could hit Earth’s magnetic field sometime on July 11th or 12th. This is not a major CME, but it could spark polar geomagnetic storms when it arrives.
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SOLAR STATIC: On July 7th, the sun produced a series of strong shortwave radio bursts. Click on the dynamic spectrum below to play a 21 MHz sample recorded by amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft in rural New Mexico. The action begins about 18 seconds into the 2 minute recording:
The roaring-static sound you just heard was a combo Type III-Type V solar radio burst caused by electron beams moving through the sun’s outer atmosphere. The source of the electrons could be an newly-emerging sunspot group in the sun’s southeastern quadrant, although this is not certain. The active region is crackling with C-class solar flares, and it could produce more radio sounds in the days ahead.
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GEOMAGNETIC STORM: A G1-class (Kp=5) geomagnetic storm that occurred during the early hours of July 5th is now subsiding.
check out the three day forecast here: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/kp_3d.html
By BRADLEY J. FIKES bfikes@nctimes.com | Posted: Monday, June 27, 2011 7:00 pm
San Andreas Fault
But as stresses keep building, faults under the Salton Sea may trigger a big quake anyway, the researchers said.
The faults, some of which the researchers discovered, could trigger ruptures in a “strike-slip stepover zone,” they said. That’s the same fault configuration that triggered the disastrous 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
Just one lunation after the previous one, the third solar eclipse of the year takes place at the Moon’s descending node in western Gemini. This Southern Hemisphere event is visible from a D-shaped region in the Antarctic Ocean south of Africa (Figure 4). Such a remote and isolated path means that it may very well turn out to be the solar eclipse that nobody sees. At greatest eclipse (08:38:23 UT), the magnitude is just 0.097.
for more, go to: http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/OHfigures/OH2011-Fig04.pdf
STORM WARNING: A fast-moving stream of solar wind is buffeting Earth’s magnetic field. The combined effect of this stream plus a CME expected to arrive on June 24th has prompted NOAA forecasters to declare a 30% to 35% chance of geomagnetic storms during the next 24 hours. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.
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June 21, 2011: In Sept. 1859, on the eve of a below-average1 solar cycle, the sun unleashed one of the most powerful storms in centuries. The underlying flare was so unusual, researchers still aren’t sure how to categorize it. The blast peppered Earth with the most energetic protons in half-a-millennium, induced electrical currents that set telegraph offices on fire, and sparked Northern Lights over Cuba and Hawaii.
This week, officials have gathered at the National Press Club in Washington DC to ask themselves a simple question: What if it happens again?
“A similar storm today might knock us for a loop,” says Lika Guhathakurta, a solar physicist at NASA headquarters. “Modern society depends on high-tech systems such as smart power grids, GPS, and satellite communications–all of which are vulnerable to solar storms.”
She and more than a hundred others are attending the fifth annual Space Weather Enterprise Forum—”SWEF” for short. The purpose of SWEF is to raise awareness of space weather and its effects on society especially among policy makers and emergency responders. Attendees come from the US Congress, FEMA, power companies, the United Nations, NASA, NOAA and more.
to read more, go to: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2011/22jun_swef2011/
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CME FORECAST, REVISED: A CME propelled toward Earth by the “solstice solar flare” of June 21st may be moving slower than originally thought. Analysts at the GSFC Space Weather Lab have downgraded the cloud’s probable speed from 800 km/s to 650 km/s. Impact is now expected on June 24th at 0700 UT plus or minus 7 hours. In this animated forecast model, the yellow dot is Earth:
A slower CME should deliver a weaker blow to Earth’s magnetic field. Forecasters now predict a relatively mild G1-class (Kp=5) geomagnetic storm when the cloud arrives. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras during the early hours of June 24. The season favors observers in the southern hemisphere where solstice skies are winter-dark
CHANGE OF SEASONS: Today marks the beginning of northern summer. The change of seasons occurs on June 21st at precisely 17:16 UT (1:16 p.m. EDT) when the sun reaches its highest point on the celestial sphere. Because Earth’s seasons are reversed in the two hemispheres, today is also the beginning of southern winter. Happy Solstice!
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Revelers cheer as the sun finally breaks through the clouds more than a couple of hours after sunrise during the summer solstice at Stonehenge, near Salisbury in England, on Tuesday, June 21.
Matt Dunham/AP
to read more, go to: http://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2011/0621/Huzzah-summer-solstice-At-South-Pole-winter-solstice-is-party-time
INCOMING: Magnetic fields above sunspot complex 1236 erupted during the early hours of June 21st, producing a C7-class solar flare and a full-halo CME. The expanding cloud appears to be heading almost directly toward Earth:
This does not appear to be an especially powerful CME. Nevertheless, the incoming cloud could trigger polar geomagnetic storms when it reaches Earth on or about June 23rd. The aurora outlook favors southern hemisphere observers, where solstice skies are winter-dark. Stay tuned for updates.
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