Solar and Aurora Activity Chat

[jonboy]

The sun is quiet again with 'The laymans sunspot count' callin a fifth spotless day for June. F10 Flux is also low in the lower 90's not much sign of a ramp up in activity either. Not much of a maximum!!

[jonboy]

And day seven spotless for June according to the 'Laymans' site. Flux now below 90 with little sign of any major activity in the immediate future

[Southern Storm]

So is that it for this maximum? the suns activity has dropped off quite a bit

in the last couple of months, at a time when it should at its peak.

Here is a link from another site some might know My link

so the last couple of winters could just be a taste of things to come.

[Rainy]

Aurora watch reports minor activity tonight. Quite a lot of cloud about here alas.

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

[shuggee]

Current measurements show a KP Index of only 3 - visible from the Faroe Islands, so we're not missing much!

[Nights King]

Well the sun still seems very inactive and in fact spotless again by layman's count.

So much for it waking up.

[Nath]

Astronomers are warning that solar flares could knock out computers, satellites and the national gri

I think they are just warning of what could happen if a powerful one did hit, rather than one is on the way.

Absolutely nothing on http://www.spaceweather.com/

I'm sure they love to make things up, I really do.

Also Gavin.... nothing on BBC news.

There is obviously a reason why it wouldnt work, but I keep thinking cant they just put fuses in the power grid that would trip on any current surge, and protect the transformers from overloading and sending us back to the stoneage?

[jonboy]

Well the sun still seems very inactive and in fact spotless again by layman's count.

So much for it waking up.

Agreed very quiet and another day spotless. Equally F10 flux levels remain very depressed. Nothing much appears to be on the horizon either. If this level of activity remains as we go into this next winter I wonder how bad this next one will be?

[Crepuscular Ray]

It seems to have changed its mind. There are now three sunspot complexes in the northern hemisphere and possibly something emerging in the south as well.

[jonboy]

It seems to have changed its mind. There are now three sunspot complexes in the northern hemisphere and possibly something emerging in the south as well.

I think more turning over in its sleep than waking up. F.10 Flux remain at low levels spots fading as quickly as they appear. Still no sign of any sustained activity

[jethro]

Apparently there are signs that the magnetic poles may already be reversing, this usually happens at solar max and would indicate that the current level of activity is good as it's going to get. Expectation was that this cycle would be long and fairly low, followed by an even quieter cycle 25. If we're at max now, cycle 24 would be relatively short which in turn usually indicates a big cycle next time around. Seems strange things are happening which is baffling some of the greatest minds. More details can be found over on www.SOLARCYCLE24.com in the ask the doc thread.

[georgiedre]

Apparently there are signs that the magnetic poles may already be reversing, this usually happens at solar max and would indicate that the current level of activity is good as it's going to get. Expectation was that this cycle would be long and fairly low, followed by an even quieter cycle 25. If we're at max now, cycle 24 would be relatively short which in turn usually indicates a big cycle next time around. Seems strange things are happening which is baffling some of the greatest minds. More details can be found over on www.SOLARCYCLE24.com in the ask the doc thread.

sori to be burden but what does this mean to our winter this year??? will it affect us (uk) wide regarding cold? soz but i am new to this kind of stuff! thanks

[frogesque]

sori to be burden but what does this mean to our winter this year??? will it affect us (uk) wide regarding cold? soz but i am new to this kind of stuff! thanks

As far as I'm aware there is NO proven link between terrestial weather and solar activity. Open to correction though.

[jethro]

As far as I'm aware there is NO proven link between terrestial weather and solar activity. Open to correction though.

New research suggests there is - quiet Sun leads to greater blocking leading to colder winters here. There's a link in the mini ice age thread over in the weather section here, scientist is called Mike Lockwood. Would trawl through and find it to post here but my computer is crashing every 5 minutes.

[yamkin]

In 2009 Professor Michio Kaku laughed off any possibility of a major solar storm in 2012, and also said, ‘I would not quit your day jobâ€.

In 2010, the professor and NASA did a complete turn around and admitted that they had got it wrong. Part of his quote below:

“…………You see us scientists made a mistake, we thought that the next solar cycles

was going to be quiet. Well some of our data was off by a factor of 20 and that’s why

we are issuing this alert now. We made a mistake, the next cycle (24) peaking around

2012 WILL BE MUCH MORE SERIOUS THAN WE PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_TzIUlaQok&feature=player_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPLjnqS8UeY&feature=player_embedded

[Crepuscular Ray]

Yamkin, where the hell do you get this rubbish from? Even NASA are admitting this solar cycle is going to be one of the quietist for several hundred years.

Oh, and if you continue to refer in your sig to a teeny weeny comet (a loose agglomeration of ice and dust no more than a couple of kilometres across and only a few degrees above absolute zero) as a dwarf star (several millions of kilometres across, several thousand degrees centigrade at various points, consisting of gas and plasma and undergoing nuclear fusion in its core) it just makes you look like you don't have a clue what you're talking about.

Edited July 30, 2011 by crepuscular ray

[frogesque]

New research suggests there is - quiet Sun leads to greater blocking leading to colder winters here. There's a link in the mini ice age thread over in the weather section here, scientist is called Mike Lockwood. Would trawl through and find it to post here but my computer is crashing every 5 minutes.

Interesting!

Unfortunately this thread is going a bit off-topic - not to mention a bit silly - to enable a sensible discussion here. I'll look and see if I can find the mini iceage thread you mention.

Meanwhile, the Sun apears to be far from quiet at the moment but I do wish Spaceweather would desist from hyping the maybees. Wake me when there's a CONFIRMED Earth directed X flare.

Edited July 30, 2011 by frogesque

[john pike]

http://www.solarham.com/

according to this at present we are having m class flares

and a geomagnetic storm

http://www2.nict.go.jp/y/y223/simulation/realtime/index.html

[pottyprof]

Annnnnnnd back to the subject we are supposed to be discussing please....

If anyone would like to discuss conspiracy garbage then please find an appropriate site to do this in. This thread is for factual details and observations only.

[shuggee]

Intense solar flare erupts from the sun:

http://www.space.com/12507-powerful-solar-flare-sun-storm-auroras.html

[pottyprof]

Just to add to Shugg's post, there was an M1 flare earlier today. The story is on spacewather.com

From STEREO Ahead - http://stereo.gsfc.nasa.gov/browse/2011/08/02/ahead_20110802_cor2_512.mpg

[john pike]

The blast also hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) almost directly toward Earth. Space-based coronagraph images from SOHO and from STEREO-A show the cloud racing away from the sun at almost 900 km/s. Minor to moderate geomagnetic storms are possible when the CME arrives on or about August 5th. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

MAGNIFICENT SUNSPOT: Double sunspot 1263 is a whopper. Its two dark cores are each wider than Earth, and the entire region stretches more than 65,000 km from end to end. Yesterday in the Netherlands, Emil Kraaikamp took advantage of a break in the clouds and "a few moments of steady air" to capture this magnificent photo:

"To image this monster, I used a 10-inch Newtonian telescope capped by a white light solar filter," says Kraaikamp. He used the same setup to photograph nearby sunspot 1261. The clarity of both images is impressive. Note the granulation of the stellar surface surrounding the main dark cores. Those are Texas-sized bubbles of plasma rising and falling like water boiling on top of a hot stove.

The magnetic field of sunspot 1263 harbors energy for powerful X-class solar flares. Because the sunspot is turning to face Earth, any such eruptions in the days ahead would likely be geo-effective

http://spaceweather.com/

please see link for story and photo. Will be worth keeping an eye on sunspot 1263.

[Love Snow]

M6-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Earth orbiting satellites have just detected a significant M6-class solar flare. The source appears to be sunspot 1261. Increased energetic proton fluxes are possible in the vicinity of Earth. Stay tuned for updates.

http://spaceweather.com/

[john pike]

Solar Activity Forecast: Solar activity is likely to remain moderate to high for the next three days (04-06 Aug) under the continued threat of a major event. Regions 1261 and 1263 are most likely to produce activity.

http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/today.html#xray

see link

[Crepuscular Ray]

Sunspot 1261 produced an M9.3 about 4 hours ago:

http://spaceweather.com/