Solar Plasma Aurora To Affect Earth?

[Alex.]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/08/03/solar_aurora_storm/

Astroboffins are warning that a mighty "eruption" of superhot plasma has been blasted out of the Sun directly at the Earth. The plasma cloud is expected to reach Earth beginning tomorrow, possibly causing strange phenomena - including a mighty geomagnetic storm which could see the Northern Lights aurorae extend as far south as Blighty or the northern USA.


I'm not too sure what this means or how legit and accurate it is..

 

[Casio]

How can superhot plasma blasted at earth be anything other than a good thing?

 

[Danoff]

The article closes with a scientist saying that this could be a sign that the sun is waking up. I think we'd all better hope so.

 

[Alex.]

Can I ask why we need the sun to 'wale up?' I see no problems.

 

[Dotini]

http://www.spaceweather.com/

 

[Danoff]

Can I ask why we need the sun to 'wale up?' I see no problems.

We're well overdue for some serious sunspot activity.

That ^^ above is the latest greatest prediction of what this solar cycle is going to look like. Notice how the peak of the curve is well below the previous one? Based on the previous cycle, solar minimum should have occurred sometime in 2007, and it sure looked like it was going to - up until the next 3 years of even lower activity started happening. Maybe now it's starting to pick back up and will follow the curve on this plot.

But before you get too caught up thinking that the wise guys in labcoats that made this plot must know what they're talking about, they still have a pervious version of this plot from 2009 on their website and it looks very different. Their 2010 prediction for solar maximum is currently lower than the uncertainty in their 2009 prediction would indicate (I should say that I don't know if those lines are formal uncertainties and if so, I don't know if it represents 1 sigma or 3 sigma or what). In fact we currently (August 2010) sit just below the lower bound on the 2009 uncertainty.

Probably it's nothing, but we're a few thousand years overdue for an ice age, and this last solar minimum got some people scratching their heads.

 

[Tornado]

If we get another ice age, will the idiots in government(s) allow us to drive Hummers and use lightbulbs again?

 

[Dotini]

If we get another ice age, will the idiots in government(s) allow us to drive Hummers and use lightbulbs again?

The way the system works, we will be taxed more so that both global warming and a new ice age may be funded research at the same time!

 

[YSSMAN]

I came in here for solar flares and the "End of the World As We Know It" scenarios. This is interesting nevertheless.

 

[ND4SPD]

God, I hope this gets me the day off work tomorrow haha.

 

[Vince_Fiero]

Indeed, the nice light effects at the poles are not the only thing that might be interesting.

I quote the first article:

Normally a blast of radiation like this could be expected to wipe out much of the human race, but fortunately we are protected by the Earth's magnetic field. . Instead the deadly solar plasma

I miss through what effect of the flow would kill us, why would the atmosphere protect at the poles differently from the rest of the world, or did the poles get evacuated in emergency?

Plasma, (a load of very hot exploding crap) should have some influence on what it hits.

Further from the article:

stream down the planetary field lines towards the poles, crashing into oxygen and nitrogen atoms

So indeed does this have any influence on the poles, e.g. the temperature, the O2/O3 concentration in the higher atmosphere?

Is the energy or quantity too low to have any influence?

 

[Christhedude]

"Knowing"

Chris

 

[Famine]

This ridiculous, sensationalist reporting was exactly what I was worried about when Dotini posted the story yesterday - the article he quoted had similar doomsday overtones about destroying satellites and injuring astronauts on EVA.

For balance, here's NASA:

On August 1st around 0855 UT, Earth orbiting satellites detected a C3-class solar flare. The origin of the blast was Earth-facing sunspot 1092. C-class solar flares are small (when compared to X and M-class flares) and usually have few noticeable consequences here on Earth besides aurorae. This one has spawned a coronal mass ejection heading in Earth's direction.

When a coronal mass ejection reaches Earth, it interacts with our planet’s magnetic field, potentially creating a geomagnetic storm. Solar particles stream down the field lines toward Earth’s poles and collide with atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, resulting in spectacular auroral displays. On the evening of August 3rd/4th, skywatchers in the northern U.S. and other countries should look toward the north for the rippling dancing “curtains” of green and red light.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

If we get another ice age, will the idiots in government(s) allow us to drive Hummers and use lightbulbs again?

Yes, but not at the same time.

 

[Vince_Fiero]

For balance, here's NASA:

Seems indeed more logical and balanced.

Looking a bit more into it I came to this article:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2009/03jun_fakeastronaut/

I did not read all, but can conclude: NASA is still testing what effect the most dramatic solar flares will have on an astronaut not protected by earths atmosphere.

From Wikipedia:

Solar flares strongly influence the local space weather of the Earth. They produce streams of highly energetic particles in the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere

I'm not too worried about the local space weather myself.

 

[pay2021]

I hope that solar flare blast the earth in two parts, that gonna be fun.

Learn to swim.

 

[DK]

If we get another ice age, will the idiots in government(s) allow us to drive Hummers and use lightbulbs again?

I'd prefer a Hilux.

 

[Danoff]

I miss through what effect of the flow would kill us, why would the atmosphere protect at the poles differently from the rest of the world, or did the poles get evacuated in emergency?

If we didn't have a magnetic field (not the atmosphere) protecting us from the sun, life might not have developed here in the first place. So it's kinda moot to point out that it's "lucky" that we have the magnetic field to protect us. Here's what a magnetic field looks like:

Notice how it focuses at the poles? The same thing happens on the earth:

This is why we see some interaction with the upper atmosphere near the poles.

 

[Alex.]

Nice posts Danoff, thanks for clearing it up.

 

[Nero9]

So what will happen? I'm getting worried.

 

[Danoff]

There's gonna be some cool lights.

 

[wfooshee]

If you're far enough from the equator.

 

[Nero9]

Is that it?
Then my fear has gone.

Thanks.

 

[PeterJB]

Do the scientist's have an idea of what time to expect Aurora Borealis to appear, or is it just whenever it feels like it?

 

[Famine]

Because of our latitude, it'll appear at night. Because of the way the Earth rotates and the amount of material ejected, it'll appear at night at pretty much everywhere at the same latitude.

 

[Dotini]

I would think it there during the daytime, too. But visible only at night because it's plasma in the glow mode, like a neon light, not like lightning which is plasma in the arc mode.

 

[Niels]

Weird, it seemed like our main national news channel told us that we were going to have to expect the light show last night already...

But now I see on here that it's supposed to be this night, the one still to come... right ?

 

[Dotini]

Your very best source of up-to-the-minute news on this sort of thing is www.spaceweather.com

 

[Alex.]

What's the chances of viewings in the UK? If it is going to happen I should have a decent chance being in the countryside.

 

[Dotini]

You should have at least a 35% chance of seeing it tonite.