The geomagnetic storm of March 13, 1989, knocked out power to six million people, although it provided quite a light show in the process. The green globe [left] shows the gigantic aurora over Antarctica as seen from the now-defunct Dynamics Explorer 1 satellite on March 14....[More]
EARTH ALIGHT
The geomagnetic storm of March 13, 1989, knocked out power to six million people, although it provided quite a light show in the process. The green globe [left] shows the gigantic aurora over Antarctica as seen from the now-defunct Dynamics Explorer 1 satellite on March 14. The image at right overlays the Antarctic aurora data over the Northern Hemisphere's magnetic field lines to indicate how it might have appeared to the satellite's instruments. Flecks of aurora reach into the mid-latitudes, as far south as Texas and Florida, where startled witnesses reported seeing mysterious colors in the night sky. The more powerful a geomagnetic storm, the farther its atmospheric display spreads from the poles to the lower latitudes.
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NASA/GSFC/University of Iowa
COLORFUL PORTENTS
An eyewitness snapped this aurora shot in Ontario, Canada, the night of the 1989 event. Highly charged and magnetized particles from the sun colliding with molecules in Earth's atmosphere produce these crimson, green and magenta ribbons in the sky....[More]
COLORFUL PORTENTS
An eyewitness snapped this aurora shot in Ontario, Canada, the night of the 1989 event. Highly charged and magnetized particles from the sun colliding with molecules in Earth's atmosphere produce these crimson, green and magenta ribbons in the sky. Called the aurora borealis (northern lights) and aurora australis (southern lights), after the polar regions where they typically appear, these auroras can also energize the atmosphere over Earth's mid-latitudes during massive geomagnetic storms. Auroras make the sky glow and often undulate overhead like curtains caught in a breeze that is actually Earth's magnetic field; they usually extend from east to west across the sky. Their presence above indicates where electrical currents flow through the ground underfoot. Because the currents cover large swaths of land, they are diffuse and cannot be felt by observers. But transformer stations, power lines and even oil pipelines can be damaged.
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Terrence Dickinson
MAGNETIC SHIELDING
Life could not exist on Earth were it not for the deflection of solar radiation and plasmas by the magnetic field generated by the planet's molten iron core....[More]
MAGNETIC SHIELDING
Life could not exist on Earth were it not for the deflection of solar radiation and plasmas by the magnetic field generated by the planet's molten iron core. Solar wind—the constant stream of particles emitted by the sun into space—contours the Earth's field like water flowing around an object. The magnetic field lines bend behind the planet and periodically "reconnect," snapping back and unleashing solar substorms that flood the atmosphere at Earth's polar regions with charged particles, producing brilliant, dancing auroras. Major fluxes of energy, magnetism and particles contained in coronal mass ejections can batter the magnetosphere and cast auroras toward the equator. (The image is not to scale—Earth's diameter is a hundredth of the sun's and it orbits at an average distance of some 93 million miles, or 150 million kilometers.)
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Steele Hill/NASA
SUNBURST, AND A NEAR MISS
Flares flash from the sun and send bursts of energy and matter flying at Earth. The most massive solar flare ever recorded broke from the sun's surface on November 4, 2003, during a tumultuous season popularly known as the Halloween storms....[More]
SUNBURST, AND A NEAR MISS
Flares flash from the sun and send bursts of energy and matter flying at Earth. The most massive solar flare ever recorded broke from the sun's surface on November 4, 2003, during a tumultuous season popularly known as the Halloween storms. A coronal mass ejection (CME)—a great blob of superheated, ionized gas—billowed out from the sun into space afterward. Fortunately, given the CME's point of origin on the right-hand side of the sun—respective both to Earth and to the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite that tracked it—our planet took only a glancing shot and not a direct hit, according to the European Space Agency. But the economic damage was still considerable: Transformers failed in Sweden, causing a blackout; airlines rerouted high-altitude flights to avoid instrument failure at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars apiece; and a $640-million Japanese science satellite's circuits overloaded and went dead. NASA told astronauts on board the International Space Station to take shelter in the section of the orbiting facility with the thickest shielding against radiation, according to a 2004 National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration report.
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SOHO/EIT (ESA & NASA)
RAGING SUN
Looplike solar prominences [bottom right] that erupt from the sun's surface—occasionally for days on end—can sever, launching a coronal mass ejection (CME), although CMEs can burst forth of their own accord, as well....[More]
RAGING SUN
Looplike solar prominences [bottom right] that erupt from the sun's surface—occasionally for days on end—can sever, launching a coronal mass ejection (CME), although CMEs can burst forth of their own accord, as well. These massive bubbles of gas and tangled magnetic field energy are the source of most major space weather events that threaten Earth. According to a 2008 National Academy of Sciences report, a CME must meet three criteria to whip up a powerful geomagnetic storm: It must shoot from near the sun's mid-latitudes on the plane of Earth's orbit so as to be on a trajectory toward our planet; have great size and speed, and thereby significant energy; and have a powerful magnetic field oriented opposite that of Earth's, which would allow the storm to negate Earth's field and unleash its full, disruptive potential.
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SOHO/EIT (ESA & NASA)
NORTHERN LIGHTS--OUT
Geomagnetic storms can trip up power distribution, and none have (yet) more dramatically than the March 13, 1989, event that left six million Canadians without electricity....[More]
NORTHERN LIGHTS--OUT
Geomagnetic storms can trip up power distribution, and none have (yet) more dramatically than the March 13, 1989, event that left six million Canadians without electricity. Starting at 2:44 A.M. local time, a cascading series of failures at substations knocked out half of Quebec's power generation in less than a minute, says astrophysicist Sten Odenwald in his book The 23rd Cycle. Over longer periods, however, damage to the electrical grid accumulates from repeated, low-level space weather events. So-called geomagnetically induced currents that flow underground can trigger heat spikes in transformers, wearing down their insulation for years until they fail. Better space weather predictions could allow utilities to reduce the power load in the grid so the voltage differentials that trigger failures would not develop, sparing expensive transformers as well as stopping the interruption of electrical service. Oil and gas pipelines also undergo corrosion caused by the electrical static in the soil. To lessen this rusting, some pipelines are now built in segments to reduce the voltage differential over long spans of pipe.
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iStockphoto.com/groveb
VULNERABLE
Even more powerful than the March 13, 1989, incident was the geomagnetic superstorm of 1859 called the Carrington event, named after the English astronomer who noticed bright flashes from the sun as he counted sunspots....[More]
VULNERABLE
Even more powerful than the March 13, 1989, incident was the geomagnetic superstorm of 1859 called the Carrington event, named after the English astronomer who noticed bright flashes from the sun as he counted sunspots. Telegraph services in many parts of the world failed and auroras glowed as far south as Cuba. As the use of electricity-fueled technologies has spread since then, society has grown immensely more prone to space weather disturbances. Another blistering geomagnetic storm, though only packing about two-thirds of the Carrington event’s punch, was the one that struck in May 1921. It sent currents through the ground 10 times as strong as those that disrupted Quebec's power grid, though again the electrical infrastructure then paled in comparison to the complexity and interdependence of today’s. This map indicates where a 1921-type storm would cripple electrical power distribution in the U.S. now. Some 130 million might be left without power: no lights, refrigeration, air-conditioning or heating—and no Internet.... You get the picture.
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John Kappenman/Metatech Corporation
THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
A crew member on board the space shuttle Discovery took this shot of the aurora australis (southern lights) in 1991. Such photos are difficult to take because they require special film that can only be used on short-duration orbital flights; space radiation can ruin the imaging material on longer missions....[More]
THE VIEW FROM ABOVE
A crew member on board the space shuttle Discovery took this shot of the aurora australis (southern lights) in 1991. Such photos are difficult to take because they require special film that can only be used on short-duration orbital flights; space radiation can ruin the imaging material on longer missions. Similarly, astronauts, especially spacewalkers, must take precautions during periods of heightened solar activity to limit exposure to tissue-damaging radiation.
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NASA
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
From the story above: "...a CME about the size of 36 Earths erupted from the sun's roiling surface and ripped through space at a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) per hour. Two days later..."
If the Earth is 91-93 Million miles and the gas travels at 1 million miles per hour - how did it get here in 48 hours?
Well 93/1.6= 58 and 91/1.6=56. 48 +8-10 hours which is less than 3 days would lead one to say loosely about 2 days time. An 8-10 hour differance is not really a huge sticking point on the story.
Your math is wrong. Please read carefully. 93/1.6 is not the proper division. That is dividing miles per hour over kilometers per hour, meaningless in this context.
The distance from the Sun to the Earths magnetosphere is about 93 MILLION miles. Anything that travels at 1 MILLION miles per hour will take 93/1 hours, or 3.875 days (3 and 7/8).
The ratio is the same if we measure in kilometers per hour.
Candide is right. Speed of 1 million miles per is aprox. right (318 - 485 km/s) http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/610/1/532/18042.web.pdf?request-id=f61cd8e6-debf-4a07-a11e-d34906d359b9 That results in nearly 4 days travel time
So it should have been 2 million mph, or so. It's not like it's off by an order of magnitude, and they only gave the speed and time figures to one significant digit. 1.54 mph would be fast enough to get it there within 2.5 days. Call it a rounding error. :)
The scary thing is the solar wind now is the lowest and coolest that has ever been measured and the solar sun spot activity is still near "0" and the next solar max should be before end of 2012. Scientific American is a reporter of scientific news not history.
Couldn't we put a giant Solar panel satellite in space waiting for the next flare. Absorbing the solar plasma and turning it into usable energy. Obviously you would need to modify the solar panels but would that be possible?????
Wild a$$ guesses are not science and SciAm should at least have proofreaders. The quality here stinks. I'd expect that of other sites, say celebrity gossip sites but (supposedly) Scientific American is a respected organization.
I find it hard to respect an organization that cannot even do simple math.
See this for another example of quality: https://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=eruption-threat-increases-for-mount-2009-03-16&posted=1#comments
13. candide
in reply to SpoonmanWoS04:19 PM 3/16/09
Look at it this way, if (as the article posits) we can possibly develop some way to alert ourselves of these, it will be VERY IMPORTANT to know how fast they travel and when they will affect us.
Preparing after the fact, due to a math error, is closing the barn door after all the cows have left.
"the torrid gas cloud crashed against Earth's magnetosphere..." We should all be dead now. If these flares are so powerful, yet our earth's protective "space shield" protects us from such a blast, why do we even give man made global warming one ounce of consideration?
15. JeniFuhr
in reply to freshspin04:07 PM 10/25/09
@ Freshpin: We should give global warming consideration and should have concern because it is actually happening at increasing rates over past years. The Carbon in the atmosphere can dispopate back down to reasonable levels but that will take time, time that we are running out of not only for ourselves but the generations after us. . Here is an interesting read: http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2009-02/big-thaw-0
I really like to read comments to see what others can contribute to the article. Not to read arguments of a cadre of proof readers surfing the web looking for minor miscalculations.
Direct Comment to: pgtruspace The Coronal mass ejection that blasted past Earth, just prior to the last polarity reversal, continued on and blasted a hole in the heliosphere, which allowed galaxy rays of energy into the solar sphere.
But, as the CME left the Suns surface it blasted a hole in the chromospheres magnetic cap, thus releasing some of the chromospheres hot and pressured positive energied proton gas to quickly vent into the lower corona, as opposed to the gradual release normally performed by the hundreds of spicules. But, the CME continued its perpendicular path from the Suns radiative zone after bursting through the ruptured tachocline and on out through one of the revolving convection zone dynamos. As it came to the coronal cell, connected to its one dynamo that had been ruptured, or from a sister dynamo, the CME arced to the energy in that one of 16 coronal cells, which event not only dispersed a large volume of that coronal cells protons, but large areas of proton gas from the lower corona also screamed out through the blasted opening.
Both the mass that had been accumulated as the radiative mass pressed its path through the tachocline, the convection zone, the thin layer of the photosphere, the chromosphere and the lower corona was added to by the proton mass that had been captured in that one coronal cloud that was; before the incident; in the shape of a croissant.
The total of the mass that escaped from the Sun; as the CME incident created its destruction; left the stars tenuous proton gas areas with a greatly depleted proton content in the areas that had been ruptured. Until the released gas is replaced by more content of effluent from more of the fusion reactions occurring in the radiative zone above the core feed stock, then the coronas croissant shaped 16 clouds will not have re-built up enough size to lessen the slits size between each cloud. Until those slits become narrow again, then the temperature in the lower corona will not build up enough to aid the as yet not pressured protons magnetically captured by each croissant shaped coronal cloud, into radiating more thermal energy out to the products inside of the heliosphere, such as you and I.
Without that happening, the great white sheets of, screaming away from the sun, sprays of tenuous gas will not send highly activated protons and their accompanying electron energy our way to present us with the beauty of the northern lights, or to knock out more of our power grids.
All of that is why the El Nino season had been quiet for quite awhile, which means less moisture in our skies as the radiant energy from the Sun was not as hot as should have occurred had that CME not been so violent.
At the same time, the galaxy cosmic rays are still bouncing around and giving us a bit of an off Sun bathing with cosmic energy. The story of what caused the CME in the first place is another story.
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18 Comments
Add CommentFrom the story above:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...a CME about the size of 36 Earths erupted from the sun's roiling surface and ripped through space at a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) per hour. Two days later..."
If the Earth is 91-93 Million miles and the gas travels at 1 million miles per hour - how did it get here in 48 hours?
Can anyone at SciAm add - or proofread?
Well 93/1.6= 58 and 91/1.6=56. 48 +8-10 hours which is less than 3 days would lead one to say loosely about 2 days time. An 8-10 hour differance is not really a huge sticking point on the story.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYour math is wrong. Please read carefully.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this93/1.6 is not the proper division. That is dividing miles per hour over kilometers per hour, meaningless in this context.
The distance from the Sun to the Earths magnetosphere is about 93 MILLION miles. Anything that travels at 1 MILLION miles per hour will take 93/1 hours, or 3.875 days (3 and 7/8).
The ratio is the same if we measure in kilometers per hour.
Candide is right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSpeed of 1 million miles per is aprox. right (318 - 485 km/s)
http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0004-637X/610/1/532/18042.web.pdf?request-id=f61cd8e6-debf-4a07-a11e-d34906d359b9
That results in nearly 4 days travel time
You are correct, but aren't you missing the point of the article?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo it should have been 2 million mph, or so. It's not like it's off by an order of magnitude, and they only gave the speed and time figures to one significant digit. 1.54 mph would be fast enough to get it there within 2.5 days. Call it a rounding error. :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyway, I'm with Hoopla.
Make that 1.54M mph. Now there's an error of a few orders of magnitude! ;)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe scary thing is the solar wind now is the lowest and coolest that has ever been measured and the solar sun spot activity is still near "0" and the next solar max should be before end of 2012. Scientific American is a reporter of scientific news not history.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCouldn't we put a giant Solar panel satellite in space waiting for the next flare. Absorbing the solar plasma and turning it into usable energy. Obviously you would need to modify the solar panels but would that be possible?????
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA solar panel collects light, a solar flare is ejected matter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure, the only point of the article is quibbling over how long it took, right? :)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs that Science "..so it shoulda been xxx?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWild a$$ guesses are not science and SciAm should at least have proofreaders. The quality here stinks. I'd expect that of other sites, say celebrity gossip sites but (supposedly) Scientific American is a respected organization.
I find it hard to respect an organization that cannot even do simple math.
See this for another example of quality:
https://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=eruption-threat-increases-for-mount-2009-03-16&posted=1#comments
Look at it this way, if (as the article posits) we can possibly develop some way to alert ourselves of these, it will be VERY IMPORTANT to know how fast they travel and when they will affect us.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPreparing after the fact, due to a math error, is closing the barn door after all the cows have left.
"the torrid gas cloud crashed against Earth's magnetosphere..."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe should all be dead now. If these flares are so powerful, yet our earth's protective "space shield" protects us from such a blast, why do we even give man made global warming one ounce of consideration?
@ Freshpin:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe should give global warming consideration and should have concern because it is actually happening at increasing rates over past years. The Carbon in the atmosphere can dispopate back down to reasonable levels but that will take time, time that we are running out of not only for ourselves but the generations after us.
.
Here is an interesting read: http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2009-02/big-thaw-0
I really like to read comments to see what others can contribute to the article. Not to read arguments of a cadre of proof readers surfing the web looking for minor miscalculations.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDirect Comment to: pgtruspace
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Coronal mass ejection that blasted past Earth, just prior to the last polarity reversal, continued on and blasted a hole in the heliosphere, which allowed galaxy rays of energy into the solar sphere.
But, as the CME left the Suns surface it blasted a hole in the chromospheres magnetic cap, thus releasing some of the chromospheres hot and pressured positive energied proton gas to quickly vent into the lower corona, as opposed to the gradual release normally performed by the hundreds of spicules. But, the CME continued its perpendicular path from the Suns radiative zone after bursting through the ruptured tachocline and on out through one of the revolving convection zone dynamos. As it came to the coronal cell, connected to its one dynamo that had been ruptured, or from a sister dynamo, the CME arced to the energy in that one of 16 coronal cells, which event not only dispersed a large volume of that coronal cells protons, but large areas of proton gas from the lower corona also screamed out through the blasted opening.
Both the mass that had been accumulated as the radiative mass pressed its path through the tachocline, the convection zone, the thin layer of the photosphere, the chromosphere and the lower corona was added to by the proton mass that had been captured in that one coronal cloud that was; before the incident; in the shape of a croissant.
The total of the mass that escaped from the Sun; as the CME incident created its destruction; left the stars tenuous proton gas areas with a greatly depleted proton content in the areas that had been ruptured. Until the released gas is replaced by more content of effluent from more of the fusion reactions occurring in the radiative zone above the core feed stock, then the coronas croissant shaped 16 clouds will not have re-built up enough size to lessen the slits size between each cloud. Until those slits become narrow again, then the temperature in the lower corona will not build up enough to aid the as yet not pressured protons magnetically captured by each croissant shaped coronal cloud, into radiating more thermal energy out to the products inside of the heliosphere, such as you and I.
Without that happening, the great white sheets of, screaming away from the sun, sprays of tenuous gas will not send highly activated protons and their accompanying electron energy our way to present us with the beauty of the northern lights, or to knock out more of our power grids.
All of that is why the El Nino season had been quiet for quite awhile, which means less moisture in our skies as the radiant energy from the Sun was not as hot as should have occurred had that CME not been so violent.
At the same time, the galaxy cosmic rays are still bouncing around and giving us a bit of an off Sun bathing with cosmic energy. The story of what caused the CME in the first place is another story.
The Ancient One
Just wait until we have an encounter with a very active start that gives us a blast of gamma rays. Nothing compared to anything our sun can dish out.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this