On March 12, Sun-monitoring spacecraft recorded a huge amount of material blasting away from the far side of the Sun from a coronal mass ejection. Detected as an expanding cloud, or halo, of solar debris, it raced away from the Sun at exceptionally high speeds of 2,127 kilometers (1,321 miles) per second.
Usually, eruptions on the far side don't tend to hit Earth, since they're facing the opposite direction; but this one was so intense that satellites orbiting our planet picked up the signal of particles from the eruption accelerated by the eruption's shockwave right into our corner of space.
A few days prior to the recent CME – given the unusual designation of R-type, for rare – a particularly active sunspot region rotated around to the far side of the Sun. Before it disappeared on 4 March, the region named AR3234 emitted (in ascending order of power) 49 C-class flares, 12 M-class flares, and 1 X-class flare – the most powerful kind of eruption of which our Sun is capable.
A direct hit on Earth by an X-class flare might not be a good thing.
What the heck is all that other crap flying around? It’s fine.
ReplyDeleteWe are going to be hit by an enormous X class flare. It's just a matter of when, not if. Like giant asteroid strikes....it's happened before and it will happen again sometime in the future.
ReplyDeleteAnother Carrington Event. The power grid would be knocked out for years. Sleep easy, I'm sure the a holes in DC have big diesel generators powering their bunkers.
ReplyDeleteWe could use the genetic assistance, of late I've not been impressed.
ReplyDelete"Signs and Portents"?
ReplyDeleteThat's a very fast CME. It would take 19-20 hours to hit Earth. If the warning was out many things could be taken off line/ disconnected. I know I'd have all my stuff locked down with enough warning.
ReplyDeleteAs long as it's on the far side we are safe, Can't comment if on the near side.
ReplyDeletePriorities matter. Solar flares no big deal. We should be more concerned with President Trump being persecuted by the NYC gestapo.
ReplyDeleteI’ve been on the Australian solar observatories email list for quite a few years now. To say the sun has been active as of late is an understatement. I would average an email alert maybe once every 3 to 6 months over the last two or three years with most alerts being for a small flare of some sort. Over the last 6 months my inbox has been filled with these alerts, upward of 8-10 a day. I had never gotten an X class flare alert until the last month. My uneducated opinion is these are causing a lot of our strange and violent weather. We had 79mph reported winds in Louisville, KY two weeks ago not associated with thunderstorms, just frontal generated wind. Lot of energy being thrown out into space.
ReplyDeleteActually might be a good thing. Those who are not prepped will perish (see entitled lefties, non-gun toting liberals and city dwellers) and those who remain will start civilization from scratch. I'm in.
ReplyDelete