Solar and Aurora Activity Chat

[Polar Maritime]

SLIM CHANCE OF FLARES: The Earthside of the sun is quiet. There are only three small sunspot groups, and none of them is actively flaring. NOAA forecasters put the odds of an M-class solar flare today at no more than 5%. http://www.spaceweather.com/

[Polar Maritime]

Is the sun really quiet.. ?

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytwAH2hJLo0&list=UUIp0KTgnQNZJIOQZqrVDw1g&index=1

ARCTIC AURORAS: A fast-moving (~550 km/s) stream of solar wind is buffeting Earth's magnetic field, sparking auroras around the Arctic Circle. In Alaska, the display was bright enough to see in full moonlight:

http://www.spaceweather.com/

Edited January 27, 2013 by Polar Maritime

[Polar Maritime]

THE QUIET CONTINUES: For the 7th day in a row, solar activity is very low. None of the sunspots on the Earthside of the sun is actively flaring. NOAA forecasters put the odds of an M-class solar flare today at no more than 5%. http://www.spaceweather.com/

[Polar Maritime]

Minor C flare early'er

[Polar Maritime]

A very high C8.4 flare early'er today from sunspot number 1667 located in the N/E. More activity is expected from this sunspot over the coming days.

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_IcMbfw_EU

Edited February 3, 2013 by Polar Maritime

[Polar Maritime]

SUNSPOT OF INTEREST: A break in the quiet could be in the offing. Sunspot AR1667 is crackling with C-class solar flares and appears capable of producing an even stronger M-class eruption. The sunspot is turning toward Earth, so future blasts would likely be geoeffective. http://www.spaceweather.com/

[Polar Maritime]

[Polar Maritime]

DOUBLE ERUPTION (UPDATED): Sunspot AR1667 erupted this morning (Feb. 6th @ 00:21 UT), producing a double-peakedC9-class solar flare that lasted more than ten hours from beginning to end. The slowly-unfolding explosion also hurled two CMEs into space. The clouds are not heading directly for Earth, but they could deliver glancing blows to our planet's magnetic field on Feb. 9-10. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend. http://www.spaceweather.com/

An article from the BBC...

If a solar superstorm struck the Earth, the effects on the UK would be "challenging but not cataclysmic", says a major report.

An expert panel for the Royal Academy of Engineering assessed the readiness of Britain to handle a huge outburst of radiation and particles from the Sun.

It found the nation's infrastructure to be reasonably well prepared.

However, the report warns disruption is likely in a number of areas. Some power cuts would probably occur, for example.

Systems reliant on the timing signals from GPS satellites might have to resort to backup oscillators for a period of days, and aviation services could have to be limited for a while because of disruption to communications and possible upsets in aircraft avionics.

But the experts stress that it is the sum of a number of issues all happening at once rather than one or two big calamities that will test society's ability to cope.

"It will be perhaps comparable to the Icelandic volcano eruption [in 2010], or something similar, where there will be severe disruption to our way of life for a while, but it will be something we believe we can deal with," Prof Paul Cannon, the report chairman, told BBC News.

Electricity resilience

Explosive eruptions of energy from the Sun are a common occurrence.

Our star can sometimes despatch big bursts of shortwave radiation and colossal volumes of charged gas (plasma) in our direction.

This "space weather" can have a number of effects on modern infrastructure, from glitching electronics in orbiting spacecraft to increasing the interference heard on radio broadcasts such as those from the BBC.

But it is the impacts that would stem from a truly big eruption that concerned the RAEng panel.

It used as its yardstick the so-called "Carrington storm" of September 1859. During this eruption, the solar particles hitting the atmosphere produced auroras across the whole world, not just at high-latitude locations as is normally the case.

The experts examined how various aspects of UK life would handle these 1-in-200-year type events.

They found the National Grid to be in good shape. A big solar storm could induce currents and heating in equipment that leads ultimately to blown transformers and blackouts. But the report said many of the contingencies to mitigate such problems were already in place because of the constant threat from terrestrial weather.

"Our grid is organised as a lattice, which means it has resilience built in," commented Chris Train, the director of market operation at the National Grid. "That's very different to the Canadian grid, for example, which is point-to-point with long lines in series. You can see how that kind of system might be vulnerable to a cascade."

Timing back-up

Satellites would undoubtedly be affected, the report said. The assessment was that perhaps one in 10 might be knocked offline by the storm. Most of these would be brought back into operation reasonably quickly, the panel found, although the experience might shorten the lifetimes of some sub-systems and components.

"Fortunately, satellites are already designed to deal with a lot of this space weather," observed one of the report's authors, Keith Ryden, a reader in space engineering at the University of Surrey Space Centre.

"Also, satellite engineers are extremely conservative people and they tend to put in big design margins, and, additionally, we have a big diversity of satellite designers these days.

"For all these reasons, we think that the effects of a superstorm, although it will lead to disruption, will be limited by these mitigating factors."

There is a particular concern about the Global Positioning System (GPS) service. A lot of utilities use the timing signals broadcast by the American sat-nav spacecraft to synchronize the operation of their networks. These broadcasts will likely be degraded, even lost, said the panel for one to three days because of disturbances in the ionosphere.

Those who were reliant on GPS timing should ensure they had back-up oscillators available, the panel said. It commended the traditional fixed and mobile phone networks in the UK in this respect, but raised a flag about the introduction of the newer 4G cellular systems. The standards underpinning the next generation of mobile phones were not as robust as they could be, the experts warned.

Future leadership

A GPS outage would also impact navigation in the shipping and aviation sectors. Disturbance to satellite and high-frequency radio communications would cause them problems, also. The panel noted that ships and planes had alternatives available. However, they recommended these sectors, especially planes, consider putting sensors onboard to understand better the glitches that can occur in electronics.

Aeroplane avionics, for example, are vulnerable to the perturbations caused by neutron particles cascading down through the high atmosphere during a storm.

The other aspect relevant to aviation is the increase in radiation that aircrew and passengers caught in a major solar storm would experience.

Dr Jill Meara is affiliated to the Centre for Radiation, Chemical and Environmental Hazards at the Health Protection Agency. She cited the example of a London to Tokyo flight. In normal circumstances, a passenger might receive a radiation dose of 0.1 millisieverts on such a journey, she explained. If the flight was made during a Carrington storm, this dose could be as much as 20mSv.

"To put that into context, 20mSv is the same dose you get from three computed tomography (X-ray) scans of your chest, roughly," she told reporters.

"It's also the dose you might get from 2.5 years living in Cornwall where the natural radiation dose is higher because of radon coming up from the ground. Clearly, 20mSv is an unusual dose and not to be recommended, but it's not a significant dose for an individual or in public health terms."

The RAEng recommends that a UK Space Weather Board be set up by the government to lead the response to the space weather issue. It also calls for more research and more coordination with the UK's international partners. http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-21357909

Edited February 7, 2013 by Polar Maritime

[Guest]

Might it be an opportunity to see whether this may have an effect on terrestrial weather?

[Coast]

Solar Superstorm: UK 'Must Brace For Threat'

Scientists say a radiation blast would not be cataclysmic - but it could cause blackouts and disrupt flights and GPS systems.

Britain must do more to prepare for a once-in-a-century "solar superstorm", according to experts. The Government is being urged by the Royal Academy of Engineering to set up a UK Space Weather Board to help cope with a massive radiation blast from the Sun. Such an explosion could trigger black-outs, knock out one in 10 satellites, and disrupt aircraft and GPS systems.

Statistically a solar superstorm is likely to occur every 100 to 200 years. Although solar weather events happen regularly, the Earth has not experienced a superstorm since the start of the space age. The last true superstorm, known as the Carrington event occurred in 1859, when Earth was hit by a tidal wave of energetic particles following a large solar flare. Induced currents caused by the blast sent sparks flying from telegraph pylons and caused fires. Around the world, night skies were lit up by magnificent aurora displays. But at that time there were no satellites in orbit or sensitive microchips in the path of the particles.

Experts now warn that another solar superstorm on the scale of the Carrington event is "inevitable" and Britain should be prepared, although the effects are not expected to be cataclysmic. Professor Paul Cannon, who chaired the Academy's working group on extreme solar weather, said: "Our message is: don't panic, but do prepare - a solar superstorm will happen one day and we need to be ready for it." With sat-navs likely to be rendered useless in such an event, his advice to motorists was "make sure you continue to keep a map in your car". Space engineer Keith Ryden, from the University of Surrey, another member of the working group, said flights would be disrupted by failing microchips, but he added: "We're not talking about aircraft dropping out of the sky."

A solar superstorm would have proved lethal for the Apollo astronauts had one occurred when they were on the Moon.Currently an ageing satellite called Advanced Composition Explorer (Ace) provides around 15 minutes warning of a Coronal Mass Ejection - a huge plasma cloud of charged particles that causes the most damage during a solar storm. Scientists are concerned about what will happen if Ace fails. A replacement for Ace, called Discover, is due to be launched by the American space agency Nasa in 2014.

http://news.sky.com/story/1048727/solar-superstorm-uk-must-brace-for-threat

[Polar Maritime]

CHANCE OF STORMS: NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% chance of polar geomagnetic storms on Feb. 8th in response to an incoming solar wind stream. Further boosting the odds, Earth's magnetic field might receive a glancing blow from debris produced by the "dark spiral" explosion of Feb. 6th (see the news item below). High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras. Aurora alerts: text,voice.

A storm might already be brewing. Jónína Óskarsdóttir photographed these auroras over Faskrudsfjordur, Iceland, during the early hours of Feb. 8th:

Stay tuned to the realtime gallery for new photos from around the Arctic Circle. http://www.spaceweather.com/

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG2lH_Hb9b0

Edited February 8, 2013 by Polar Maritime

[Mountain Snow]

Just had an amber alert email, fingers crossed for aurora tonight.

Weather has been lovely today, lots of sunshine. Some cloud building up now and forecast to be cloudy overnight, hopefully there will be some clear slots, no moon around either.

[Polar Maritime]

It's getting closer...

[Polar Maritime]

No reports of any Aurora sightings over the UK, but plenty over the usual places at higher latitudes..

Camera Used: Canon Canon EOS-1D X

Exposure Time: 13/1

Aperture: f/2.8

ISO: 1600

Date Taken: 2013:02:09 04:47:26 More images Details: Another great night in the arctic! For the 4th consecutive night here I saw the auroras and tonights show was particularly good, which is probably due to the arrival of the CMEs that were released earlier this week by sunspot AR1667.

The night started in a very wrong way with very clouded sky, but luckily it all cleared rather early.

All photos taken with Canon 1DX and lens 14mm f/2.8 II.

Edited February 9, 2013 by Polar Maritime

[Polar Maritime]

EARTH-DIRECTED ERUPTION: On Saturday, February 9th, around 0640 UT, a magnetic filament in the sun's northern hemisphere erupted, hurling a coronal mass ejection (CME) toward Earth. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the UV flash from the underlying C2-class solar flare:

http://www.spaceweather.com/

[Polar Maritime]

[pottyprof]

Well.... A glancing blow and a near miss this last week. Even the collapsing filament that let loose a CME couldn't do a great deal for us with this heading north. It makes it more interesting when the alternative peak for the cycle will be in the next few months (the original was between Feb and April 2012).

Going back to this idea that the UK needs to be ready for the next Carrington event...... Since getting my Ham license I've had chance to talk to many people about this and the general feeling is that the current communication system would fail to some degree or other. We're not talking people who play radio on a Sunday morning. These people are trained in emergency communications. Some of these people are part of government bodies. The good news is that there will be a line of communication set up, a bit 1920s at times but at least it would be something. You only have to look at what happened when O2 went down for a few hours and when RIM had the Blackberry glitch to get a feel for what may happen. There is also some concern regarding an Electro-Magnetic Pulse wiping out the communications network. This relates to the idea of a nuclear weapon exploding in the atmosphere as well as from a solar source. It's an interesting subject and probably one we'll be hearing more about over the coming years.

[Polar Maritime]

[Liam J]

Aurora watch UK have issued an amber geomagnetic activity alert, perhaps some visible sightings later, and not just over the far north of the British Isles.

http://aurorawatch.lancs.ac.uk/

http://helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/

Edited February 14, 2013 by Liam J

[Polar Maritime]

AURORAS TONIGHT: Earth is entering a region of slightly elevated solar wind speed. The uptick is small, but enough to spark bright auroras around the Arctic Circle on Feb. 13-14. Frank S. Andreassen sends this snapshot from Harstad, Norway:

http://www.spaceweather.com/

[Mountain Snow]

Amber alert for aurora. Clearish skies here, could be a good night for stargazing, chance of aurora and keep eyes peeled for meteors!

[Polar Maritime]

Some nice recent vid's here ive spotted..

http://vimeo.com/59813809

http://vimeo.com/59815699

[Polar Maritime]

Finally some X-Ray activity! An M-Class flare (M1.9) was just observed around Sunspot 1675.

Edited February 17, 2013 by Polar Maritime

[Mountain Snow]

Good stuff! Can we expect it to hit tonight? I notice there's an amber alert again.

[Polar Maritime]

Good stuff! Can we expect it to hit tonight? I notice there's an amber alert again.

M-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: New sunspot AR1675 has just unleashed the most intense flare of the year so far, an M1.9-class explosion at 1550 UT on Feb. 17th. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a double-flash of extreme UV radiation from the explosion:

Based on the duration of the flare and other factors, it seems likely that this explosion also produced a CME. Coronagraph data are not yet available, however, to confirm. http://www.spaceweather.com/