[WIham] NASA: HUGE SOLAR FLARE MAY DISRUPT POWER AND COMMUNICATIONS

[Rick Kisséll]

--- On Tue, 6/7/11, Greg Dempsey <gregdempsey at sti.net> wrote:



Officials 
said an unusual solar flare observed 
by a NASA 
space observatory on 
Tuesday 
could cause 
some disruptions to satellite
communications and power on Earth over 
the 
next day or 
so.
Hi 
Team!
*? 2 ALL: 
NASA: HUGE SOLAR FLARE MAY DISRUPT 
POWER AND COMMUNICATIONS - 


 Agence 
France-Presse reports:


"The potent blast from the Sun unleashed a 
firestorm of radiation on a level not witnessed since 2006, and will likely lead 
to moderate geomagnetic storm activity by Wednesday, according to the National 
Weather Service.
"This one was rather dramatic," said Bill 
Murtagh, program coordinator at the NWS's Space Weather Prediction Center, 
describing the M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare that peaked at 1:41 am Eastern 
time in the United States, or 0541 GMT.
"We saw the initial flare occurring and it 
wasn't that big but then the eruption associated with it -- we got energy 
particle radiation flowing in and we got a big coronal mass injection," he 
said.
"You can see all the materials blasting up 
from the Sun so it is quite fantastic to look at."

NASA: Huge solar flare may 
disrupt power and communications - what are your comments?

Greg Dempsey
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SECULARHUMANIST/
Voice of the 
People
 
========

NASA: Huge solar flare may 
disrupt power and communications




By Agence 
France-Presse
Tuesday, June 7th, 2011 -- 6:13 pm 


 
35 





WASHINGTON — NASA's solar dynamics observatory, which 
launched last year and provided the high-definition pictures and video of the 
event, described it as "visually spectacular," but noted that since the eruption 
was not pointed directly at Earth, the effects were expected to remain "fairly 
small."
"The large cloud of particles 
mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it covered an area of almost half 
the solar surface," said a NASA statement.
Murtagh said space weather 
analysts were watching closely to see whether the event would cause any 
collision of magnetic fields between the Sun and Earth, some 93 million miles 
(150 million kilometers) apart.
"Part of our job here is to 
monitor and determine whether it is Earth-directed because essentially that 
material that is blasting out is gas with magnetic field combined," he told 
AFP.
"In a day or so from now we are 
expecting some of that material to impact us here on Earth and create a 
geomagnetic storm," he said.
"We don't expect it to be any kind 
of a real severe one but it could be kind of a moderate level storm."
The Space Weather Prediction 
Center said the event is "expected to cause G1 (minor) to G2 (moderate) levels 
of geomagnetic storm activity tomorrow, June 8, beginning around 1800 
GMT."
Any geomagnetic storm activity 
will likely be over within 12-24 hours.
"The Solar Radiation Storm 
includes a significant contribution of high energy protons, the first such 
occurrence of an event of that type since December 2006," the NWS 
said.
As many as 12 satellites and 
spacecraft are monitoring the heliosphere, and one instrument in particular on 
board NASA's lunar reconnaissance orbiter is measuring radiation and its 
effects.
"Certainly over the (two-year) 
lifetime of the mission this is the most significant event," said Harlan Spence, 
principal investigator for the cosmic ray telescope for the effects of 
radiation, or CRaTER.
"This is really exciting because 
ironically when we were developing the mission initially we thought we would be 
launching closer to a solar maximum when these big solar particle events 
typically occur," Spence told AFP.
"Instead we launched into a 
historic solar minimum that took a long, long time to wake up," he 
said.
"This is interesting and 
significant because it shows the Sun is returning to its more typical active 
state."
The resulting geomagnetic storm 
could cause some disruption in power grids, satellites that operate global 
positioning systems and other devices, and may lead to some rerouting of flights 
over the polar regions, Murtagh said.
"Generally it is not going to 
cause any big problems, it will just have to be managed," he said.
"If you fly from the United States 
to Asia, flying over the North Pole, there are well over a dozen flights every 
day," he added.
"During these big radiation storms 
some of these airlines will reroute the flights away from the polar regions for 
safety reasons to make sure they can maintain communications.
"People operating satellites would 
keep an eye on this, too, because geomagnetic storming can interfere with 
satellites in various ways whether it is the satellite itself or the signal 
coming down from the receiver."
The aurora borealis (Northern 
Lights) and aurora australis (Southern Lights) will also likely be visible in 
the late hours of June 8 or 9, NASA said.



    
     

    
    __._,_.___