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| Image linked from SpaceWeather.com (story Monday Oct 3, 2011) |
Oct 1st a previously unknown comet (detected the day before) slams into the sun and then two flares occurred. Pretty amazing stuff. One flare is heading for us. Supposed to cause some spectacular auroras, etc. The only thing that kinda bugs me is that Planet Slayers use stars as weapons and seeing this reminded me of them instantly.
"The part of the eruption centered on sunspot 1305 hurled a coronal mass ejection toward Earth. The relatively slow-moving (500 km/s) cloud is expected to reach our planet on Oct. 4th or 5th, possibly causing geomagnetic storms when it arrives. "
Normally this type of stuff doesn't even register with me, but when you take into consideration the flare we had in 1859 things like this can become a very scary situation.
Carrington Super Flare
On 1 September 1859, Carrington and Richard Hodgson, another English amateur astronomer, independently made the first observations of a solar flare. World wide reports on the effects of the geomagnetic storm of 1859 were compiled and published by Elias Loomis which support the observations of Carrington and Balfour Stewart
Magnetic storm
On 1 September 1859, Carrington and Richard Hodgson, another English amateur astronomer, independently made the first observations of a solar flare. World wide reports on the effects of the geomagnetic storm of 1859 were compiled and published by Elias Loomis which support the observations of Carrington and Balfour Stewart
Magnetic storm
On September 1–2, 1859, the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred. Aurorae were seen around the world, most notably over the Caribbean; also noteworthy were those over the Rocky Mountains; that were so bright that their glow awoke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. According to professor Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, "people in the northeastern U.S. could read newspaper print just from the light of the aurora."
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| Instead of telegraph machines wigging out, we'd have larger problems... |
Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases even shocking telegraph operators. Telegraph pylons threw sparks and telegraph paper spontaneously caught fire. Some telegraph systems appeared to continue to send and receive messages despite having been disconnected from their power supplies.
What would happen if we had a similar event to the one in 1859? (Video above explains some of it...)
The flare coming doesn't appear to be a big deal so far, but it was eerie to see the video and think of the Planet Slayers...
~ Rob
