Alrightie then!  Incoming   Type X5.4-class solar charged particle outburst… incoming as I type these words.   

Write4U - 07 March 2012 06:01 PM

Not trying to hijack this thread, but for those who can observe auroras, this may be of interest.
http://photoblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/07/10596987-solar-blast-could-have-earthly-impact?ocid=ansmsnbc11

No problem bro, it is sort of a timely thing.  Though, you know how I am, give me something interesting to share and blam….

So I looked up your link… cool stuff, what’s wild is this evening driving home I was talking to my lady about the time a couple solar cycles back when I saw the aurora over the La Plata Mountains to the north of us. {we’re talking Colorado/New Mexico border south.}
It was pretty specially, I’d love to see one again.  No sign of it this evening though (11ish pm).  Though I’ll have to walk outside before going to bed.  {no offense intended with the image, just couldn’t resist… the devil made me do it }

===

Kunches, a space scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center,

The coming geomagnetic storm is predicted to reach the G3 level, which could trigger alarms on electrical power systems and create intermittent problems for GPS navigation services. {...} problems could arise with communication systems in polar regions.
That’s the bad news.
The good news is that NASA and NOAA have lots of resources in space to monitor solar activity, giving network operators more time to assess and prepare.

{...}

Experts at the Space Weather Prediction Center say the storm generated by the X5.4-class flare is on a trajectory to deliver a glancing blow rather than a direct hit on Earth, but they caution that the sunspot region responsible for the flare, AR1429, “remains potent, and subsequent activity is certainly possible.”
~ ~ ~

“The most northern states in the ‘Lower 48’ should have a chance to see the aurora,” the prediction center reported on Facebook.

~ ~ ~
Check out NOAA’s chart of space weather scales to learn more about what S3, G3 and the other storm designations mean.
=====

{heck this is too interesting not to bootleg:}

Update for 4:40 p.m. ET March 7: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center reports that the coronal mass ejections sent out on Tuesday are projected to impact Earth and Mars as well as several interplanetary spacecraft, including NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, the Messenger probe at Mercury and the sun-watching STEREO-B satellite. The NASA advisory also notes that the X5.4-class flare was the strongest solar outburst since an X6.9 blast on Aug. 9, 2011. In that previous case, the resulting CME was not directed at Earth, and no ill effects were felt.
~ ~ ~
Update for 5 p.m. ET March 7: A lot of commenters are talking about the Carrington Event of 1859, a solar storm that was so strong it frazzled telegraph wires. That was associated with what

It was cloudy in Texas, so I missed the pretty light show.

From the BBC

A solar storm in the Earth’s magnetic field has passed by the Earth with minimal effects, experts say.

More is yet to come:

Dr Craig Underwood, from the Surrey Space Centre, UK, said: “The event is the largest for several years, but it is not in the most severe class. We may expect more storms of this kind and perhaps much more severe ones in the next year or so as we approach solar maximum.

However, from this article HERE

Solar Storm Warning Satellite on Last Legs

The satellite, nicknamed ACE, provides the only advance notice of incoming high-energy particles from the sun which can wreak havoc on radio, GPS, satellite communications that are now embedded in modern life.

It all depends on the polarity:

Depending on the polarity, or alignment, Earth’s magnetic shield will either peel away, giving the highly charged particles more freedom to disturb electrically sensitive equipment and communications, or rebuff the particles, such as what happened during this week’s outburst.

And ACE is old:

“ACE is a single point of failure and it’s old,” Murtagh said. “Every time I have a space weather storm I cringe a little bit that our very own space weather satellite doesn’t succumb to the storms I’m relying on it to help forecast.”

So, keep your fingers crossed that ACE will not fail when another Solar Storm occur.

kkwan - 18 March 2012 01:34 AM

However, from this article HERE

Solar Storm Warning Satellite on Last Legs

The satellite, nicknamed ACE, provides the only advance notice of incoming high-energy particles from the sun which can wreak havoc on radio, GPS, satellite communications that are now embedded in modern life.
{...}
And ACE is old:

“ACE is a single point of failure and it’s old,” Murtagh said. “Every time I have a space weather storm I cringe a little bit that our very own space weather satellite doesn’t succumb to the storms I’m relying on it to help forecast.”

So, keep your fingers crossed that ACE will not fail when another Solar Storm occur.

I read your post and was shocked, shocked I tell you. I thought that the sun was getting more and more attention from scientists and satellites.  Then I read the link, now I’m steaming, because it turns out this critical forecasting tool wasn’t replaced because of another idiot Bush Administration hissy fit.

Jeez is there’s no end to the insanity and stupidity that dastardly, bastardly, treasonous Bush Administration wrought on our nation and the world.  And ok I demonizing here… perhaps… but it just never seems to stop… those greed-blinded self-interested pigs were a bunch of idiots and demons and ex-.... well ok ok I’ll shut up and take a hard walk, punch a tree or two and get over it. 

HERE

Solar Storm Warning Satellite on Last Legs
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Launched in 1997, ACE gives forecasters advance notice if a storm is headed toward Earth
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Stationed about 1 million miles from Earth, ACE provides early warning of what’s headed toward Earth. NOAA says more than 22,000 utility operators, airlines, satellite owners, GPS users and others are signed up to receive space weather alerts and millions more get the information on NOAA’s website.
{...}

Another satellite with space weather sensors was slated to be launched in 2003 by the ill-fated shuttle Columbia crew, but the spacecraft, known as Triana, was nixed by the Bush administration because of its backing by former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore. (Informally, Triana was sometimes referred to as GoreSat.)

Gore championed the spacecraft for its ability to continuously relay live pictures of Earth from the vantage point of 1 million miles away in space, in hopes that the global view of the blue planet would rally environmental awareness.

“There were no technical reasons why it couldn’t go. We were getting ready to send it the Cape (Kennedy Space Center) for launch and we got an order that the mission was not going to go,” project scientist Adam Szabo, with NASA’s Heliospheric Physics Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, told Discovery News.
{...}

Launch is targeted for June 2014. The sun’s 11-year solar cycle is expected to peak in May 2013. Heightened solar activity, which is ramping up this year, will continue for about the next six years.

yea, yea, the Columbia, so I suppose I should consider it a wash… but it’s the thinking behind the decisions that those people made that so incenses me.

citizenschallenge.pm - 18 March 2012 08:36 AM

yea, yea, the Columbia, so I suppose I should consider it a wash… but it’s the thinking behind the decisions that those people made that so incenses me.

You seriously overrate it by calling it “thinking”, I would say, cc.

More like an adolescent schoolboy spat; “We don’t like you, so we won’t put your satellite in orbit, so there! Pththththzzzz!!”

Theflyingsorcerer

The Columbia broke up on reentry. The crew would have deployed the satellite. Now the Air Force is taking bids to launch the satellite because the U.S. has no such capability. GW Bush will surely go down as the worst president in history.

DarronS - 18 March 2012 09:33 AM

The Columbia broke up on reentry. The crew would have deployed the satellite. Now the Air Force is taking bids to launch the satellite because the U.S. has no such capability. GW Bush will surely go down as the worst president in history.

It’s funny that, the realization just hit me and I came rushing back to correct… delete that post.  Guess that explosion of the Challenger is more indelibly imprinted on my mind… well that and I can be a dummy, my bad.