Monday, August 2, 2010

Space weather warning. Large coronal mass ejection (CME) blasting in the direction of Earth. ETA 3 August.



My thanks to Spider Ted for forwarding this space weather warning.

This morning's solar flare could be expected to cause some minor issues with communications over the next 4 days.

http://news.discovery.com/space/incoming-the-sun-unleashes-cme-at-earth.html

Earlier this morning, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) witnessed a complex magnetic eruption on the sun. The joint NASA/ESA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) -- a mission sitting at the L1 point between the Earth and the sun -- also spotted a large coronal mass ejection (CME) blasting in the direction of Earth.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting. Might be a good time to try alternate methods of communication.

Dennis308 said...

I went and read a couple of the comments,comical.

Dennis
III
Texas

III more than them said...

This might be a good time for all groups to check on their comms interference resilience. Set up a test routine and put your equipment through a series of quality checks. Every 6 hours or so? 3? Record the quality on a scale that is useful for you, and later you can compare your findings with records at http://spaceweather.com/.

At 4.13 days estimated, for energy from the sun to reach us, the earliest it could do its thing is sometime around 0407ET, based on the recorded event at 0355ET on the 30th.

I really don't expect much, but this is a concurrence of events... "complex solar eruption -- including a flare, shockwave, filament eruption and CME". Take advantage of the "opportunity" and see what you can see....

Greg in Allston said...

It could also make for a very nice Aurora Borealis/Australis.

Alvie D. Zane said...

The sun is doing this just to mock Obama's Internet Kill Switch.

Ergo, the sun is racist!

(Sorry, just jumping ahead to the predictable headlines when this happens and Hussein's blackberry quits.)

Ominous Cowherd said...

It's a C3 ... the C-size CMEs are non-events, but might make for some pretty aurora tonight and tomorrow night.