A solar ‘superstorm’ is coming and we’ll only get 30-minute warning

via http://www.independent.co.uk/

A solar “superstorm” could knock out Earth’s communications satellites, cause dangerous power surges in the national grid and disrupt crucial navigation aids and aircraft avionics, a major report has found.

It is inevitable that an extreme solar storm – caused by the Sun ejecting billions of tonnes of highly-energetic matter travelling at a million miles an hour – will hit the Earth at some time in the near future, but it is impossible to predict more than about 30 minutes before it actually happens, a team of engineers has warned.

Solar superstorms are estimated to occur once every 100 or 200 years, with the last one hitting the Earth in 1859.

Although none has occurred in the space age, we are far more vulnerable now than a century ago because of the ubiquity of modern electronics, they said.

“The general consensus is that a solar superstorm is inevitable, a matter not of ‘if’ but ‘when?’,” says a report into extreme space weather by a group of experts at the Royal Academy of Engineering in London.

In the past half century, there have been a number of “near misses” when an explosive “coronal mass ejection” of energetic matter from the Sun has been flung into space, narrowly bypassing the Earth.

In 1989 a relatively minor solar storm knocked out several key electrical transformers in the Canadian national grid, causing major power blackouts.

Similar solar storms significantly increased atmospheric radiation levels in 1956, 1972, 1989 and 2003, the experts found.

Professor Paul Cannon, who chaired the academy’s working group on solar storms, said that the Government should set up a space weather board to oversee measures aimed at minimising the impact of solar storms.

“A solar superstorm will be a challenge but not cataclysmic. The two challenges for government are the wide spectrum of technologies affected today and the emergence of unexpected vulnerabilities as technology evolves,” he said.

“Our message is, ‘Don’t panic, but do prepare’. A solar superstorm will happen one day and we need to be ready for it.

“Many steps have already been taken to minimise the impact of solar storms on current technology… We anticipate that the UK can further minimise the impact,” he added.

Minor solar storms hit the Earth on a regular basis, but these are far less powerful than the 1859 event named after the British astronomer Richard Carrington, which was the last true solar superstorm.

A similar event today would put severe strain the electricity grid, where transformers are particular vulnerable to power surges, as well as degrading the performance of satellites, GPS navigation, aviation and possibly the mobile phone network, particularly the new 4G network, which relies on GPS satellites for timing information.

“Satellites are certainly in the front line of a superstorm. They are part of our infrastructure and we have concerns about their survival in a solar superstorm,” said Keith Ryden, a space engineer at Surrey University.

Giant Coronal Mass Ejection unleashed onto Earth September 3rd, 2012

Two days after the CME impact of Sept. 3rd 2012, Earth’s polar magnetic field is still stormy and unsettled. Look out!!!

According to Tami Urbanek via NaturalNews.com  According to some researchers, strong solar activity can also disrupt the Earth’s tectonic plates and trigger earthquakes. Incidentally, there was a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) released on February 15th, and it hit the Earth on February 17th. Another CME was released on March 7th, 2011. Both of these CMEs were released just prior to the New Zealand and Japan earthquakes. Some CMEs released may not produce an effect as significant as an earthquake; however, they can still affect each person’s EEF. All people carry their individual EEF. The strength can vary among different people, so as a result, each person will be affected a little differently.
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/032045_solar_flares_Earth.html

 

via http://www.space.com ‘Northern Lights Blaze Up After Big Sun Storm’ Mike Wall, SPACE.com Senior Writer

Date: 04 September 2012 Time: 06:10 PM ET

The northern lights, supercharged by a recent solar storm, dance above Naimakka, Finland, in this shot snapped on Sept. 4, 2012, by Ole Salomonsen. CREDIT: Ole Salomonsen (http://www.facebook.com/arcticlightphoto)  View full size image

The northern lights erupted in a stunning display Monday night (Sept. 3) after a recent solar storm, amazing skywatchers around the world.

On Friday (Aug. 31), the sun unleashed a coronal mass ejection(CME), sending a huge cloud of charged particles streaking into space at more than 3.2 million mph (5.1 million kph), NASA researchers said. The CME delivered a glancing blow to Earth’s magnetosphere, putting on quite a show for stargazers at high latitudes.

Photographer Ole Salomonsen captured the supercharged northern lights — also known as the aurora borealis — from a forest near Naimakka, Finland. He drove about 120 miles (200 kilometers) to get there, as the weather wasn’t cooperating in Tromso, Norway, where he lives and works.

 

Photographer Ole Salomonsen captured this stunning shot of the northern lights above Namaikka, Finland, on Sept. 4, 2012.

CREDIT: Ole Salomonsen (http://www.facebook.com/arcticlightphoto)

 

But the view was worth the international trip, Salomonsen said.

“There I was standing all alone deep into the Finnish forest, just in awe of this display of light that happened above my head,” he wrote in a Facebook post.

Even a bright moon couldn’t spoil the show, Salomonsen added.

“A large moon is not normally optimal for watching auroras, especially not when it’s not completely dark yet up here,” he told SPACE.com via email. “But the moon actually contributed to absolutely magic photographic conditions, with the mist/fog over the lakes.”

 

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft captured this massive coronal mass ejection (CME) erupting from the sun on Aug. 31, 2012.
CREDIT: NASA/SDO/AIA/GSFC

Big CMEs that hit Earth squarely can wreak havoc, spawning powerful geomagnetic storms with the potential to disrupt GPS signals, radio communications and power grids. But the storms resulting from Friday’s CME — which occurred after an enormous filament erupted from the sun’s surface — were minor and apparently had little impact aside from the ramped-up auroras.

The northern and southern lights result when charged particles from the sun collide with molecules high in Earth’s atmosphere, generating a glow.

The auroras are usually restricted to high latitutes because Earth’s magnetic field lines tend to funnel these particles over the planet’s poles. Solar storms can increase both the intensity and reach of auroral displays, bringing them into view for more skywatchers around the world.

After remaining relatively quiet from 2005 through 2010, the sun began waking up last year. It has fired off numerous strong flares and CMEs over the last two years, and researchers predict more such activity in the near future.

Solar activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. Scientists think the current one, known as Solar Cycle 24, will peak sometime in 2013.

 

 

 

Magnetic Portals Found in Earth’s Atmosphere

more sun storms: higher earth temps

WORLD NEWS TOMORROW – Science-fiction writers have toyed with the concept of a portal for many years, and scientists have been trying to discover such a structure in real life. A new study backed by NASA has revealed the existence of a so-called magnetic portal, connecting the atmospheres of the Earth and the Sun.

Usually, a portal is defined as an opening through spacetime that enables a traveler to move over great distances, or over time, instantly. In other words, it represents a shortcut, or maybe a guiding pathway to a particular destination.

Using funds provided by the American space agency, experts at the University of Iowa have recently been able to discover electron diffusion regions (X-points), where the magnetic field of Earth connects directly to the magnetic field of the Sun.

This link creates an uninterrupted path leading from our own planet to the Sun’s atmosphere,” more than 93 million miles (157 million kilometers) away,” says UI plasma physicist Jack Scudder.

The observations that led to this conclusion were carried out using the Cluster constellation – which is operated by the European Space Agency (ESA) – and the NASA Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms (THEMIS) mission.

The satellites indicate that the magnetic portals open and close several times per day, and that they are located around only a few tens of thousands of kilometers away from Earth. They prefer to appear at locations where the geomagnetic field meets incoming solar winds.

These portals can be either short-lived, or can last for a longer time, allowing highly energetic particles to flow right through. These particles can heat the planet’s upper atmosphere, create geomagnetic storms, and spawn very bright auroras.

NASA plans to study these magnetic portals in more detail, once it launches the Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission (MMS), in 2014. The constellation will feature four identical satellites.

All the vehicles will study magnetic reconnection, a process that occurs high above the planet, and which can provide telltale signs regarding the formation of magnetic portals. Each of the MMS spacecraft will have the ability to detect these clues, and then alert the others of the impending event.

MORE HERE…  World News

Transit of Venus : to cross the face of the sun on Tuesday June 5, 2012

Cooperation

June 8, 2004 file photo shows the transit of Venus, which occurs when the planet Venus passes between the Earth and the Sun, is pictured in Hong Kong. Venus will cross the face of the sun on Tuesday June 5, 2012, a sight that will be visible from parts of Earth. This is the last transit for more than 100 years. (AP Photo/Vincent Yu,File)

via WikiPedia

Seismic Monitor

IRIS Realtime Seismic Monitor

Awesome!

Seismic Monitor allows you to monitor global earthquakes in near real-time, visit seismic stations around the world, and search the web for earthquake or region-related information. You can also view seismograms and make dataset requests via its WILBER interface. The date and time of the map (in Universal Time) are located in the lower right hand corner.

	Earthquakes are shown as colored circles, where the size of the circle tells you the magnitude of the quake, using the legend at the top left of the map. Only earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 or greater are displayed. (Locations and magnitudes are provided to IRIS by the USGS. Earthquakes greater than magnitude 4.0 may be missing from the USGS catalog in some parts of the wor ld because local networks have not yet reported them to the USGS. In such cases please check with your local or national network.)
Circle Color	Age of Earthquake
Red	the last 24 hours    <– animates briefly when page is loaded
Orange	from 24 to 48 hours
Yellow	from 3 days to 2 weeks
Purple	from 2 weeks up to 5 years

The distribution of earthquakes over the past 5 years is represented by the purple dots and demonstrates how earthquakes define the boundaries of tectonic plates, as well as the relationship between topography and earthquakes.

The Earth’s shadow shows the line between day and night as well as the progression of the seasons.