Soho Cameras are being affected right now due to the flare protons.
Update 3/8/12 7 Am - As of this morning, I do not see that the Earth has been impacted at all. The magnetosphere does not show there has been any pressure on the Earth as of yet. So it seems it may be as the last time, the flare went either above or below the Earth and missed us.
Since X flares travel much faster - the one released this morning will be getting to Earth tomorrow morning. Watch for Auroras. This is the strongest Earth directed CME/flare in a long time. East coast is 4 hours behind UTC time. So that would be around 2 AM est. The stereo and soho cameras are being affected by the strong CMEs over the last day. You can see all the white particle protons.
From Above Link:
WASHINGTON – The largest solar flare in five years is racing toward Earth, threatening to unleash a torrent of charged particles that could disrupt power grids, GPS and airplane flights.
"It's hitting us right in the nose," said Joe Kunches, a scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He called it the sun's version of "Super Tuesday."
The solar storm is likely to last through Friday morning, but the region that erupted can still send more blasts our way, Kunches said. He said another set of active sunspots is ready to aim at Earth right after this.But for now, scientists are waiting to see what happens Thursday when the charged particles hit Earth at 4 million mph.
GEOMAGNETIC STORM UPDATE: A CME propelled toward Earth by this morning's X5-class solar flare is expected to reach our planet on March 8th at 0625 UT (+/- 7 hr). Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, who prepared the CME's forecast track, say the impact could spark a strong-to-severe geomagnetic storm. Sky watchers at all latitudes should be alert for auroras. Aurora alerts: text, phone.
great site for all info.
As always to watch it and the affect on the magnetosphere - watch at this site.
What I find is interesting almost one year ago to the date we had a strong flare hit the Earth, then the 3/11/11 quake/tsunami happened.
Flares do have an affect on Earthquakes, due to the pressure. When the pressure is released is when the Earth pops I have found. So, expect large quakes during/after this X-flare event.
Graph of X-Flare and other Flares that have been released over the last day from the same sunspot.
Graph of X-Flare and other Flares that have been released over the last day from the same sunspot.
I found this interesting. I like to see how far down the Auroras are when a flare is impacting the Earth. It seems that NOAA is doing an IT upgrade at this time and there is no real time Aurora Map to be seen.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/index.html
Added - Great Video about it. Shows an X-Flare happened and then another X-Flare happened right after.
This guys explains a lot. He does say, he wasn't sure if it was Earth directed when he made the video. I will add, since then NOAA has confirmed it is Earth directed.
Golly, I sure this doesn't affect the electronic vote counting machines!
ReplyDeleteOn second thought..
LOL Thanks for the laugh. Too bad it didn't arrive yesterday. :)
DeleteMaybe the votes for Ron Paul would have stayed Ron Paul. :D
Something i always wonder is why there's never any real coverage of the power outages after these large solar flares hit the earth. Perhaps i'm just looking at the news close enough :)
ReplyDeleteover the last few years the large flares (which hadn't been many until March 9th last year (X-flare)) have not been Earth directed. They have gone to the sides/above/below the Earth. The last one, a couple of months ago that the media warned people about, did not hit the Earth. It ended up going above us. This one is expected to hit us square on. I will be unplugging items tonight, in case of surges. The problem is, our magnetosphere has weakened about 25% over the last few decades, so we can be affected more now. The M flare that hit the Earth a couple of months ago, exposed satellites and we saw the Auroras as far South as Tn./Ark/N.C. I believe there may just be a major show again in the middle of the night in the South, tonight. I may set an alarm to get up and see if a show is going on around 3am.
DeleteGuess what's gonna happen at 2am east coast time!!!
ReplyDelete.................................nothing at all.
Real time aurora map recommended by NOAA:
ReplyDeletehttp://helios.swpc.noaa.gov/ovation/
I don't understand why if sunlight takes 8 1/2 min. to travel to Earth, then why is this flare taking so long? Anyone?
ReplyDeleteThe flare accelerates charged particles with significant mass towards Earth at a much slower rate than light-speed photons, hence the delay. The charged particles produce the aurora:
Deletehttp://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cms/astro/cosmos/G/Geomagnetic+Storms
The timing and sources are suspicious. It's a bit curious that a solar flare which threatens to knock out radio transmissions is arriving on the same day the F.B.I. is scheduled to interrupt internet communications and take down thousands of websites, allegedly to cleanse the internet of a DNS trojan.
ReplyDeleteKeep your rifle ready. Both events might be part of a ruse to silence communications while they "round up the dissidents."