MAGNIFICENT FLARE: On June 7th at 0641 UT, magnetic fields above sunspot complex 1226-1227 became unstable and erupted. The resulting blast produced an M2-class solar flare, an S1-class radiation storm, and an unbelievable movie:
Credit: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory.
“It looks like someone kicked a clod of dirt in the air,” says solar physicist C. Alex Young of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in a Youtube video. “I’ve never seen material released in this way before–an amazing, amazing event.”
Much of the plasma thrown up by the blast simply fell back to the sun–indeed, that’s what makes the footage so dramatic. In the movies you can see blobs of hot gas as large as Earth making bright splashes where they hit the stellar surface. Some plasma, however, reached escape velocity and left the sun in the form of a coronal mass ejection: movie. Traveling faster than 1100 km/s, the CME should deliver a glancing blow to Earth’s magnetic field during the late hours of June 8th or June 9th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when the CME arrives.
AIR-RAISING SOLAR ACTIVITY: Over the past few days, amateur astronomers have recorded some of the most photogenic solar activity in years. Onlookers describe huge prominences of magnetized plasma rising above the stellar surface as “Unbelievable!”–“Hydrogen at its best”–“Massive and incredible!” This shot was simply hair-raising:
Alan Friedman took the picture from his backyard observatory in Buffalo, New York, on June 5th. “There are more to come,” he promises. And why not? The show is still underway. Latest images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory reveal at least three regions of continued activity. Readers with solar telescopes are encouraged to train their optics on the limb of the sun
M-FLARE AND RADIATION STORM: This morning around 0641 UT, magnetic fields above sunspot complex 1226-1227 became unstable and erupted. The blast produced an M2-class solar flare, an S1-class radiation storm, and a massive CME. A recording of the blast from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory ranks as one of the most beautiful and dramatic movies of the SDO era:
A video with commentary from solar physicist C. Alex Young of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center shows material splashing back to the stellar surface. “I’ve never seen material released this way before,” he says in the video. “It looks like someone kicked a clod of dirt in the air–an amazing, amazing event.”
While displaying the Sun to 500+ kids and their families at the Virginia Highlands Summer Festival in Atlanta, GA, we were all witness to this incredible display of solar activity. Early in the morning a large magnetically supercharged chunk of Hydrogen Plasma was ejected from the limb of the Sun right before our eyes. It just hung there over the Sun almost 25 Earth Diameters high. It was breathtaking to watch and really got the attendees interested in our nearest star.
GEOMAGNETIC STORM: A sharp gust of solar wind hit Earth’s magnetic field at approximately 20:30 UT on June 4th. The impact sparked an intensifyingG2-class geomagnetic storm, in progress. High-latitude sky watchers in both hemispheres should be alert for auroras.
INTENSIFYING SOLAR ACTIVITY: The quiet sun is waking up. New sunspot 1226 emerging over the sun’s southeastern limb is crackling with strong C-class solar flares. So far none of the blasts has been geoeffective, but this could change in the days ahead as the active region turns toward Earth
JUMP: Solar activity is low, but it’s not zero. Just look at what happened yesterday. On May 20th, an enormous filament of hot plasma and magnetism reared up from the edge of the sun and …. (click on the image)
…it jumped! The magnificent leap spanned more than 200,000 km of fiery starscape. This is the sort of thing that happens routinely when a 1027ton nuclear explosion (a star) is “quiet.”
SUNDIVING COMET: A comet just discovered by amateur astronomer Sergey Shurpakov is diving past the sun today, and it will probably not survive. Click here to view a movie of the death plunge recorded by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory–and check back for updates in the hours ahead.
APPROACHING ACTIVE REGION: A sunspot located just behind the sun’s eastern limb erupted during the waning hours of May 9th, hurling a spectacular coronal mass ejection into space: movie. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed hot magnetic loops towering over the edge of the sun in the aftermath of the explosion: must-see. Earth was not in the line of fire this time, but the active region is approaching the Earthside of the sun, so future blasts could be geoeffective.
January 21, 2009: Did you know a solar flare can make your toilet stop working?
That’s the surprising conclusion of a NASA-funded study by the National Academy of Sciences entitled Severe Space Weather Events—Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts. In the 132-page report, experts detailed what might happen to our modern, high-tech society in the event of a “super solar flare” followed by an extreme geomagnetic storm. They found that almost nothing is immune from space weather—not even the water in your bathroom.
Right: Auroras over Blair, Nebraska, during a geomagnetic storm in May 2005. Photo credit: Mike Hollingshead/Spaceweather.com.
The problem begins with the electric power grid. “Electric power is modern society’s cornerstone technology on which virtually all other infrastructures and services depend,” the report notes. Yet it is particularly vulnerable to bad space weather. Ground currents induced during geomagnetic storms can actually melt the copper windings of transformers at the heart of many power distribution systems. Sprawling power lines act like antennas, picking up the currents and spreading the problem over a wide area. The most famous geomagnetic power outage happened during a space storm in March 1989 when six million people in Quebec lost power for 9 hours: image.
According to the report, power grids may be more vulnerable than ever. The problem is interconnectedness. In recent years, utilities have joined grids together to allow long-distance transmission of low-cost power to areas of sudden demand. On a hot summer day in California, for instance, people in Los Angeles might be running their air conditioners on power routed from Oregon. It makes economic sense—but not necessarily geomagnetic sense. Interconnectedness makes the system susceptible to wide-ranging “cascade failures.”To estimate the scale of such a failure, report co-author John Kappenmann of the Metatech Corporation looked at the great geomagnetic storm of May 1921, which produced ground currents as much as ten times stronger than the 1989 Quebec storm, and modeled its effect on the modern power grid. He found more than 350 transformers at risk of permanent damage and 130 million people without power. The loss of electricity would ripple across the social infrastructure with “water distribution affected within several hours; perishable foods and medications lost in 12-24 hours; loss of heating/air conditioning, sewage disposal, phone service, fuel re-supply and so on.”
“The concept of interdependency,” the report notes, “is evident in the unavailability of water due to long-term outage of electric power–and the inability to restart an electric generator without water on site.”
Above: What if the May 1921 superstorm occurred today? A US map of vulnerable transformers with areas of probable system collapse encircled. A state-by-state map of transformer vulnerability is also available: click here. Credit: National Academy of Sciences.
