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Solar and Aurora Activity Chat


shuggee

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

And there was I being envious of yer 'cause yer satellite images show you in clear(ish) skies. Is it just low stuff?

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Look forward to the fogs then?

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Posted
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W

Look forward to the fogs then?

Was a cold clear frosty night here last night - went down to -5C on the greenhouse thermometer. I looked out a few times up 'till 1.00 am but couldn't see anything above the town light pollution so if there was anything it wouldn't have been spectacular.

Have to wait and see if tonight brings anything.

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Posted
  • Location: Canmore, AB 4296ft|North Kent 350ft|Killearn 330ft
  • Location: Canmore, AB 4296ft|North Kent 350ft|Killearn 330ft

Will this solar activity tonight be visible from Canada? I have looked for the past few days and not seen anything but tonight it is supposed to be clear

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Posted
  • Location: Larbert
  • Location: Larbert

50% chance

From the Space Environment Center

Analysis of Solar Active Regions and Activity from 14/2100Z to 15/2100Z: Solar activity was high. Region 930 (S06W59) produced an X1.5/2B solar flare with a 510 sfu 10 cm radio burst at 14/2215Z. Type II (1277 km/s) and Type IV radio sweeps were associated with this event. The flare was accompanied by a frontside, asymmetrical, full halo CME with an estimated plane-of-sky speed of 900 km/s. Ejecta of this CME seems to be predominately from the southwest sector of the halo.

Not completely earth directed, but we may get a bit of a blast later this evening in the UK or more probable in Canada.

Kp is 1 at the moment. Really need a KP index of 6 and above for this area.

CC. This is a blurred vision of the last sighted aurora over Ontario on 14 Dec. Keep a look out: http://www.solarcycle24.com/aurora.jpg

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Posted
  • Location: Larbert
  • Location: Larbert

Looks 'busy' on the farside:

Posted Image

And from Spaceweather:

Sunspot 930 announced itself on Dec. 5th with one of the strongest flares in years--an X9, followed by an X6 on Dec. 6th, an X3 on Dec. 13th and an X1 on Dec. 14th. Not bad for solar minimum!

Edited by Mondy
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Posted
  • Location: Llandysul, Ceredigion, Wales
  • Location: Llandysul, Ceredigion, Wales

A whole page dedicated to the Geomagnetic Storm and Auruora Dec 14/15 can be found here - check out some of the sound files. Arctic flutter http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/unsure.gif

ve3ikv. Xmas number 1, surely.

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Posted
  • Location: Switzerland
  • Location: Switzerland

Hi Mondy,

Is this article about the same solar flare that caused the activity on the 14th/15th? An interesting read, I don't suppose you know if the fault on the space station is serious? It must be pretty worrying for the astronauts up there...

This is what I love about NetWeather, I know nothing about the sun's activities but other people find stuff that is so facinating I want to find out more! Do you know if solar flares like this are an often occurrance and do they cause harm to our environment?

Cheers D

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Posted
  • Location: Larbert
  • Location: Larbert

Hi Daisy

Yeah, this was the solar flare of 13 Dec. It measured X3 and was earth directed.

A severe G4 storm occured which is really what the article is about.

This is what a G4 storm can do: http://www.sec.noaa.gov/NOAAscales/index.h...omagneticStorms

Spacecraft operations: may experience surface charging and tracking problems, corrections may be needed for orientation problems.

All aboard the space station would be fine and suitably protected. They're probably now trying to fix any faults!

Do you know if solar flares like this are an often occurrance and do they cause harm to our environment?

This was a beast of a sunspot. It prodused 4 X-flares, one of which was X9.

More on X-flares here: http://www.spaceweather.com/glossary/flareclasses.html

Considering we're now at the bottom of the solar cycle where the sun is supposed to be quieter, Sunspot 930 (the recent source) went against the grain!

There was a record X28 flare in Nov 2003. Fortunetly, it wasn't Earth directed. If it was serious harm could've been done to communications. Here's a little snippet about the X28: http://sci.esa.int/science-e/www/object/in...fobjectid=34058

And a news report on the record breaking flare: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3251481.stm

Edited by Mondy
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Posted
  • Location: Larbert
  • Location: Larbert

Infact, Scientists believe the record breaking flare might've been X40!!

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/universe/solars...ove_xflare.html

“After looking at our data, we realized it was more likely an X40 flare,” said David Brodrick of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) Australia Telescope National Facility, Narrabri, Australia. “This is 70 percent more powerful than the original estimate. It was a staggering amount of energy – if it were possible to store for later use, it would have provided the energy in approximately ten thousand trillion barrels of oil, enough to supply the world for 340,000 years at current consumption.”

8)

Edited by Mondy
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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

I guess that means we got off lightly. I just read somewhere that scientists now believe the biggest pops from the sun are during solar min. Probably to do with the electromagnetic field not being so 'wound up' at the start of a cycle so the 'burst' isn't restricted in the way it would be if it was forced to be twisting through a convoluted electromagnetic field.

Seeing as we have had the backwards moving sunspot we must be into the next solar cycle by now so maybe we have more in store (as your far side image suggests) so maybe a few more big 'pops' to come?

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Posted
  • Location: Larbert
  • Location: Larbert

Hey, GW. That farside image is nothing like yesterday. Looks real quiet again. Was spots galore on it yesterday - think it might've been a glitch, tbh..

Daisy. A backward sunspot heralds the beginning of the next solar cycle: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/15aug_backwards.htm :)

The next cycle, Solar Cycle 24, should begin "any time now," returning the sun to a stormy state.

Satellite operators and NASA mission planners are bracing for this next solar cycle because it is expected to be exceptionally stormy, perhaps the stormiest in decades.

8)

Edited by Mondy
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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Hey, GW. That farside image is nothing like yesterday. Looks real quiet again. Was spots galore on it yesterday - think it might've been a glitch, tbh..

Daisy. A backward sunspot heralds the beginning of the next solar cycle: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/15aug_backwards.htm :)

:)

So is the x40 a sign of things to come? maybe the wrong time to have developed mass com. sats. ? maybe the end of the next cycle will see the Sun popping off bigger 'unristricted' bursts than that.

The next big 'single' I see forming on the Sun's equator I'll look at with different eyes after the NASA blurb (especially when it's facing us!).

I must gen. up on our star. I know we've been gawping through telescopes for a few hundred years but now, with our current technology's, we are starting to discover more and more about it's cycles and behaviours. Yet another thing that I realise I know nowt about. 8)

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Posted
  • Location: Switzerland
  • Location: Switzerland

Thanks Mondy and GW, for all the extra info, interesting stuff. Need to read and digest properly now!

So quite a rare event if a G4 storm only occurs 100 times each solar cycle? X40 that would be the biggest solar flare ever recorded? You'd have thought all of that energy would have had more of an effect. Even if a lot of it is deflected away... Looking forward to see what happpens in the next 11 years, if the solar activity is set to be as intense as anticipated.

Edited by Daisy
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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Thanks Mondy and GW, for all the extra info, interesting stuff. Need to read and digest properly now!

So quite a rare event if a G4 storm only occurs 100 times each solar cycle? X40 that would be the biggest solar flare ever recorded? You'd have thought all of that energy would have had more of an effect. Even if a lot of it is deflected away... Looking forward to see what happpens in the next 11 years, if the solar activity is set to be as intense as anticipated.

As a tangent away from this it would seem that the sun has 'cycles within cycles' which seem to add or detract from one another (positively reinforce or negatively reinforce) and it is this 'variability' that has grabbed my interest. Many of our 'rapid climate shifts' have been fast (1 solar cycle forcing?) and so the extra output from the sun may have a greater effect on our climate than the normal 'shifts' in energy output over 1 solar cycle (max to min) which could be enough, in the short term, to push the climate beyond various 'tipping points' (exiting an ice age may be speeded up etc.) If there is an increase in energy output from the next cycle it couldn't have happened at a worse time, for ourselves, if we believe we have already 'shifted ' our global temps already.

If a normal 'long cycle is 24 solar cycles then this pans out at around 250yrs per cycle. D/O events are supposedly spaced 1,500yrs apart and other cycles come in at 3,000yrs or 4500yrs so it seems to me that there may be an even longer cycle that we have not 'recognised' yet and it is these longer 'long cycles' that help the measurable alteration in climate at regular intervals. Is the next cycle not only a long cycle but the end of one of these longer cycles??? Polar reversal anyone?

Edited by Gray-Wolf
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Posted
  • Location: Sunny Southsea
  • Location: Sunny Southsea

I found this site while browsing & thought I'd give you a chance to check it out, mainly for the 1700 + free photo archive. In addition, Aftenposten, the Norwegian newspaper, ahs some reports today on recent Aurorae: http://www.northern-lights.no/

:)P

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Posted
  • Location: Larbert
  • Location: Larbert

Nice site P3 :)

Mentioned last night that the far side of Sun had looked very active. Then i dismissed it as the latest farside image appeared.

Decided to save the latest image tonight. Might not be a glitch afterall - looks very active!

post-1563-1166559712_thumb.png

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Posted
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W

Something cooking on the Eastern limb?

Could be old spots 928 and 929 making a new apearance as 930 departs

http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/realtime/eit_284/512/

Edited by frogesque
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Posted
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W
  • Location: Kingdom of Fife: 56.2º N, 3.2º W

Aurora forcast currntly ACTIVE http://www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/

High solar wind speed from coronal hole. Could possibibly produce enough oommmph (technical term http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif ) for aurora to be seen from the Northern tip of Scotland

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Posted
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......
  • Weather Preferences: Hot & Sunny, Cold & Snowy
  • Location: Mytholmroyd, West Yorks.......

Aurora forcast currntly ACTIVE http://www.gedds.alaska.edu/AuroraForecast/

High solar wind speed from coronal hole. Could possibibly produce enough oommmph (technical term http://nwstatic.co.uk/forum/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif ) for aurora to be seen from the Northern tip of Scotland

False dawn for Yorkshire?????

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