Solar storms may cause cellphones to drop calls
SourceSolar storms may cause cellphones to drop calls
January 24, 2012 | 2:06 pm
The effects of a massive solar flare on Sunday are expected to be felt on earth on Tuesday evening.
On Sunday, a massive explosion on the sun known as a solar flare sent an ejection of some of the sun's plasma hurtling toward earth at the ungodly speed of 1,000 kilometers...per second!
No need to worry about being hit by flying sun plasma though -- that will zoom right past Earth and race toward the edge of the solar system, according to Harlan Spence, principal investigator for the Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER) instrument onboard NASAs Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter.
It's the ionizing-radiation that was also produced during the flare that hit Earth on Tuesday that is more of a cause for concern.
The radiation won't physically hurt those of us who are earthbound -- the Earth's magnetic field and its atmosphere provides an effective shield against that. But astronauts who are working on the International Space Station could be at risk.
"These particles move so fast that they can penetrate the walls of spacecraft, damage electronics and even pass through a spacesuit into a person's body," said Spence. "And when it moves through you, it can do grave damage to your cells and your DNA. That's why astronauts will try to go to a well shielded environment when one of these events occur."
Furthermore, our beloved GPS systems may be affected. The GPS satellites themselves, which are located high above the Earth's atmosphere, are most likely not at risk, but the earth's electromagnetic field will get all stirred up by radiation coming off the sun, and the signals we receive have to pass through that stirred-up area.
"As conditions change, GPS systems may be degraded," said Spence.
Cellphones will generally not be affected, said Douglas Biesecker, a physicist with NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.
"It can be impacted if it's sunrise or sunset and the cell tower is in the same direction of the sun," he said. "A cellphone signal is very very weak, so anything that comes in at that frequency could overwhelm it. You would just drop the call, but you wouldn't realize why."
And if you are planning a flight that might pass near one of the Earth's poles -- from New York to Japan for instance -- your plane might be rerouted to keep the flash flood of charged plasma particles from interfering with navigation systems. Delta has already rerouted some of its flights. Others flew at lower altitudes to reduce the risk of radiation exposure.
Solar storm sends charged particles toward Earth
SourceSolar storm sends charged particles toward Earth
By Amina Khan, Los Angeles Times
January 24, 2012
A massive explosion on the sun's surface has triggered the largest solar radiation storm since 2005 and has unleashed a torrent of charged plasma particles toward Earth, though the threat to satellites, power grids and other high-tech hardware is believed to be manageable, scientists said.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration detected a solar flare Sunday night that peaked at 7:59 p.m. Pacific time. NOAA satellites traced the bright flash of X-ray light to an area on the sun's surface known as region 1402 the same area that had produced a weaker flare Thursday. A coronal mass ejection which can hurl billions of tons of plasma up to 5 million mph quickly followed.
Radiation from the explosion arrived at Earth within hours of the flash, said Doug Biesecker, a physicist with NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo. A burst of charged plasma particles is expected to reach Earth by 6 a.m. Tuesday. That charged plasma is traveling uncommonly fast, making the 93-million-mile trip to Earth in about 34 hours, rather than taking two or more days, as is usually the case, Biesecker said.
Sunday's radiation storm is the strongest since May 2005, when another happened that was perhaps 10% larger, Biesecker said. Based on the amount of radiation emitted, both storms measure about a three on a scale of one to five.
While the plasma may cause otherworldly displays of light and color in some parts of the sky Tuesday night, the bombardment of energetic particles can wreak havoc on Earth potentially downing GPS systems, wiping out power grids, destroying sensitive satellite equipment in orbit and exposing astronauts to fatal doses of radiation.
As a precaution Monday, some flights were rerouted around polar regions, where the flash flood of charged plasma particles may interfere with navigation systems. Others flew at lower altitudes to reduce the risk of radiation exposure.
Though it had been more than six years since the last storm of this magnitude, storms of this size are expected to become more frequent as a period of peak solar activity approaches in 2013.
"As we ramp up to the solar maximum next year, this sort of storm will become normal," Biesecker said.
Scientists still don't know how to predict these solar events which is a problem because they deliver a triple threat to technology on Earth, said Stanford solar astronomer Todd Hoeksema.
X-rays traveling at the speed of light hit the Earth in about eight minutes. These can interfere with radio communications.
A burst of radiation traveling at near-light speeds begins pelting Earth 20 minutes to an hour later. This radiation causes what are known as "single event upsets." Essentially, a high-energy proton traveling through a satellite can interfere with the charges in the silicon-based hardware, which can cause it to spit out spurious signals.
The third and final attack comes from the burst of charged particles that affects Earth's magnetosphere, potentially interfering with airplane navigation systems. This particular worry is expected to force rerouting of some flights during the storm.
These are not hypothetical fears, Biesecker said. For example, the infamous October 2003 "Halloween storm" took out Japan's ADEOS-II spacecraft, among other victims, causing the approximately $600-million satellite to fail less than a year after its launch.
"With all the technology of our advanced civilization, solar storms can have significant effects on communication, power, things like that," said UC Berkeley physicist Robert Lin. "The really big ones can have an enormous effect on space weather on the Earth."
But most satellites built today should be relatively safe from mid-level storms such as the current one, said NOAA research scientist Juan Rodriguez. Modern satellites are built to withstand space weather as severe as a 1989 storm that caused a massive power outage in Canada's Quebec province.
That said, those looking for a light show Tuesday night might be in for a treat. The aurora borealis probably won't be visible in Los Angeles, Rodriguez said, "but in Canada, maybe in the northern United States, it's a pretty amazing sight."
amina.khan@latimes.com
What if solar storms knocked out the Internet?
SourceWhat if solar storms knocked out the Internet?
January 24, 2012 | 5:37 pm
Northern Lights after solar storm
The likelihood is remote, but there's a chance that a solar flare like the one that disrupted the Earth's electromagnetic field Tuesday could be responsible for the temporary demise of the Internet -- or at least your ability to access it.
Don't believe us? Well, in 1989 electrical ground currents created by another solar storm made their way into the power grid of the Hydro-Quebec Power Authority, causing 6 million people to lose electricity. Elevators stopped working. Office buildings went dark. Engineers in Northern America were worried the blackout could travel down the Eastern Seaboard, although that never came to pass.
The U.S. government has since invested in research that has improved the design of electrical systems to make them less vulnerable to the effects of a solar storm. Still, we thought it was an interesting exercise to imagine what would happen if we were forced to live for a few hours, days or even weeks in a world without Internet.
Here are our top five predictions.
1. Self-promotion would become gauche again. Somewhere along our journey to total digital dependence -- maybe around 2007 or 2008 -- we accepted, as a society, that when it came to managing our Internet persona, it was clearly self-promote or perish. Did your kid do well on the SATs? Tell your 256 friends on Facebook all about it. Got a new project going at work? Tweet it loud and proud. Got a big story dropping in Vanity Fair? Email everyone in your address list. But in a world without Internet, where you have to look someone in the face while bragging, all this 'look how great I am' stuff might start to feel weird again.
2. Remembering who directed a movie would be a major project. Instant access to information through Wikipedia, IMDB and even Google has made it weirdly easy to answer any pop culture question that occurs to us at absolutely any time. If the 1986 film "Labyrinth" came up at Christmas dinner, you could figure out who directed it with just a few taps on a smartphone. But in a world without Internet, that same question could keep you guessing, or arguing, all night long.
3. Deal hunting would become a sport again. We are drowning in a daily deluge of deals. Gilt Groupe, HauteLook, Groupon, Blackboard Eats -- those are just a handful of sites that entice Internet users to save money by spending money on fancy local restaurants, Juicy Couture clothes, pricey sunglasses and spa treatments. But in a world without Internet, knowing which nail salon was giving 50 percent off a mani-pedi would take actual leg work. You'd have to really want it to find it.
4. Collecting would take effort. In today's world, deciding to start a collection of Art Deco jewelry, or mid-century pottery, or tea pots, or door knobs or Persian rugs with animals in the design is as simple as going on EBay and forking over cash. But in a world without Internet these collector gems could be found only by combing through Goodwills and tag sales. Stinky, time consuming and frequently unrewarding work.
5. You'd hear a lot fewer Apple rumors. In an online news cycle that demands constant updating, unsubstantiated rumors that Apple's next iPad might have better resolution than its last iPad is considered a major news story. In a world in which we had to typeset our stories by hand, pay for the paper they were printed on and the ink that they were printed with, well...you'd probably hear only about one Apple rumor a week.
Solar storm expected to fire up northern lights
SourceSolar storm expected to fire up northern lights
(AP) STOCKHOLM Stargazers were out in force in northern Europe on Tuesday, hoping to be awed by a spectacular showing of northern lights after the most powerful solar storm in six years.
Even before particles from that storm reached the Earth on Tuesday, the aurora borealis was dancing across the sky as far south as Ireland and England, where people rarely get a chance to catch the stunning light show.
"The lights appear as green and red mist. It's been mostly green the past few nights. I don't know if that's just special for Ireland," said Gerard O'Kane, a 41-year-old taxi driver and vice chairman of the Buncrana Camera Club in County Donegal in Ireland's northwest corner.
He and at least two dozen amateur photographers were meeting after dark at a local beach for an all-night stakeout. They've been shooting the horizon from dozens of locations since Friday night.
An aurora appears when a magnetic solar wind slams into the Earth's magnetic field, exciting electrons of oxygen and nitrogen.
The northern lights are sometimes seen from northern Scotland, but they were also visible Monday night from northeast England and Ireland, where such sightings are a rarity.
Those auroras were likely just variations in normal background solar wind, not the solar storm that erupted Sunday, said physicist Doug Biesecker at the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.
He said a geomagnetic storm Tuesday that came from that solar storm seemed to mostly miss Earth, going a bit north, so it was unlikely that auroras would extend too far south Tuesday night.
While the geomagnetic part of the solar eruption which happened around 11 p.m. EST Sunday was more of a fizzle, another earlier part of the sun's outburst was more powerful.
On Monday and Tuesday, the proton radiation from the eruption reached strong levels, the most powerful since October 2003. That mostly affects astronauts and satellites, but NASA said the crew on the International Space Station was not harmed and only a few minor problems with satellites were reported, Biesecker said.
On the northern edge of Europe, where auroras are common, the sky lit up after nightfall Tuesday. A webcam from Abisko, northernmost Sweden, showed bright bands of green sweeping across the starry sky.
Aboard the M/S Midnatsol, a cruise ship plying the fjord-fringed coast of Norway, British astronomer John Mason said the lights danced around in "fantastic structure" Tuesday evening.
"We had green arcs with rays going up in the sky. And because we were underneath them, they were making all kinds of shapes in the sky. One looked like a heart," he said. He was expecting an even stronger display later Tuesday or early Wednesday, as Sunday's solar flare kicks in with full force.
Geomagnetic storms cause awesome sights, but they can also bring trouble. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, problems can include current surges in power lines, and interference in the broadcast of radio, TV and telephone signals. No such problems were reported Tuesday.
Scientists have been expecting solar eruptions to become more intense as the sun enters a more active phase of its 11-year cycle, with an expected peak in 2013.
But in recent years the sun appeared quieter than normal, leading scientists to speculate that it was going into an unusually quiet cycle that seems to happen once a century or so.
Peter Richardson, a 49-year-old bar manager and part-time poet at the 17th-century Tan Hill Inn in northern England, said the pub normally dead on a Monday night in January was thronged until the wee hours of the morning with people who came to look at the lights.
"I just thought: 'Oh my God, this is just absolutely amazing,'" he said. "You do get a lot of spectacular skylines out here, but that was just something out of the ordinary. Very different."
Ken Kennedy, director of the Aurora section of the British Astronomical Association, said the northern lights may be visible for a few more days.
The Canadian Space Agency posted a geomagnetic storm warning Tuesday after residents were also treated to a spectacular show in the night sky.
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AP Science Writer Seth Borenstein in Washington and AP writers Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin and Raphael Satter in London contributed to this report.
Solar storm sparks dazzling northern lights
SourceSolar storm sparks dazzling northern lights
By KARL RITTER and SETH BORENSTEIN
The Associated Press
Posted Jan 24, 2012 @ 06:32 PM
Even experienced stargazers were stunned by the intensity of the aurora borealis that swept across the night sky in northern Scandinavia after the biggest solar flare in six years.
"It has been absolutely incredible," British astronomer John Mason cried from the deck of the MS Midnatsol, a cruise ship plying the fjord-fringed coast of northern Norway.
"I saw my first aurora 40 years ago, and this is one of the best," Mason told The Associated Press, his voice nearly drowning in the cheers of awe-struck fellow passengers.
U.S. space weather experts from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Tuesday evening that so far they had heard of no problems from the storm that triggered the auroras, which made it as far south as Wales, where the weather often doesn't cooperate with good viewing.
It was part of the strongest solar storm in years, but the sun is likely to get even more active in the next few months and years, said physicist Doug Biesecker at the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.
"To me this was a wake up call. The sun is reminding us that solar max is approaching," Biesecker said. "A lot worse is in store for us. We hope that you guys are paying attention. I would say we passed with flying colors."
Even before particles from the solar storm reached the Earth on Tuesday, a different aurora Monday night was dancing across the sky as far south as Ireland and England, where people rarely get a chance to catch the stunning light show.
Those northern lights were likely just variations in normal background solar wind, not the solar storm that erupted Sunday, Biesecker said.
Tuesday's colorful display may not have moved that far south, limiting its audience, but those who got to see it got brilliance in the sky that had not been around for years.
"It was the biggest northern lights I've seen in the five-six years that I've worked here," said Andreas Hermansson, a tour guide at the Ice Hotel in the Swedish town of Jukkasjarvi, above the Arctic Circle.
He was leading a group of tourists on a bus tour in the area when a green glow that had lingered in the sky for much of the evening virtually exploded into a spectacle of colors around 10:15 p.m.
"We stopped the bus. And suddenly it was just this gigantic display of dancing lights and Technicolor," said Michele Cahill, an Irish psychologist, who was on the tour. "It was an absolutely awesome display. It went on for over an hour. Literally one would have to lie on the ground to capture it all."
But in -30 degrees F (-35 C), that didn't seem like a good idea.
An aurora appears when a magnetic solar wind slams into the Earth's magnetic field, exciting electrons of oxygen and nitrogen.
The northern lights are sometimes seen from northern Scotland, but they were also visible Monday night from northeast England and Ireland, where such sightings are a rarity.
"The lights appear as green and red mist. It's been mostly green the past few nights. I don't know if that's just special for Ireland," said Gerard O'Kane, a 41-year-old taxi driver and vice chairman of the Buncrana Camera Club in County Donegal in Ireland's northwest corner.
He and at least two dozen amateur photographers were meeting after dark at a local beach for an all-night stakeout. They've been shooting the horizon from dozens of locations since Friday night.
Scientists have been expecting solar eruptions to become more intense as the sun enters a more active phase of its 11-year cycle, with an expected peak in 2013.
But in recent years the sun appeared quieter than normal, leading scientists to speculate that it was going into an unusually quiet cycle that seems to happen once a century or so.
While the geomagnetic part of the solar eruption which happened around 11 p.m. EST Sunday was more of a fizzle, another earlier part of the sun's outburst was more powerful.
On Monday and Tuesday, the proton radiation from the eruption reached strong levels, the most powerful since October 2003. That mostly affects astronauts and satellites, but NASA said the crew on the International Space Station was not harmed and only a few minor problems with satellites were reported, Biesecker said.
However, some airplane flights over the North Pole have been rerouted because of expected communication problems from the radiation.
Geomagnetic storms cause awesome sights, but they can also bring trouble. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, problems can include current surges in power lines, and interference in the broadcast of radio, TV and telephone signals. No such problems were reported Tuesday.
Peter Richardson, a 49-year-old bar manager and part-time poet at the 17th-century Tan Hill Inn in northern England, said the pub normally dead on a Monday night in January was thronged until the wee hours of the morning with people who came to look at the lights.
"I just thought: 'Oh my God, this is just absolutely amazing,'" he said. "You do get a lot of spectacular skylines out here, but that was just something out of the ordinary. Very different."
Ken Kennedy, director of the Aurora section of the British Astronomical Association, said the northern lights may be visible for a few more days.
The Canadian Space Agency posted a geomagnetic storm warning Tuesday after residents were also treated to a spectacular show in the night sky.
John Manuel, a scientist with the Canadian Space Agency, said there's an increased chance of seeing northern lights over northern Canada on Tuesday night.
"It's not likely people in the major Canadian cities further south will see a significant aurora tonight," he said. "There's always a possibility but the current forecast is for a good show for people who live further north. It should be a particularly good night tonight."
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AP Science Writer Borenstein reported from Washington. AP writers Louise Nordstrom in Stockholm, Shawn Pogatchnik in Dublin, Raphael Satter in London and Rob Gillies in Toronto contributed to this report.
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