Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastrophe

I know about this stuff, as ive been into astronomy for the past 23 years..VERY avidly into it, when i was enterint my teens. This is just what COULD happen..it could happen any day, at any minute, at any second for all we really know. The sun, goes through a solar cycle, every 12 years...it is at this mark, the 12 years, the suns surface is free of sunspots. However, activity also peaks on hte sun, at this time/point. Every 12 years, as far as NJ, can see Aurora Borealis, as its reffered to ffor the norther hemisphere..aurora Australis for souther hemisphere.
The earth has its megetic field and val allen belts to prtoect, along with tis bow shock. The chances of a disaster are rather slim..but it has happneed in the past 50 years 2 or 3 times...
I think it was late 1970's? a solar sotrm passed by earth, and the entire northeast USA and eastern canada was without lights..the electromagnetic storm that passed through us, fried the electric grid. I do know thier was another time, it happened as well..forget where it was.
It kinda strikes me as fear mongering, in the websites article. For wehre we are in orbit, 93-94 million miles out..for us to get burned, if yuo wanna call it that..our ozone would have be at 5% or less. Worse case scenario, form a soalr storm for us on earth... yuor car might shut off and get stuck whereever, anyting with a microchip in it, outside, would be cosnidered fried or shortcuircited.

Originally posted by Chadwickus
1859 is the year you wanna look at

Wow... Never looked at this before but it seems there is a correlation between peak storms and power outages...

The first recorded evidence of space weather effects on technology was in 1847 (Barlow, 1849). In 1859 a major failure of telegraph systems in New England and Europe coincided with a large solar flare (Tsurutani et. al., 1859).

www.magazine.noaa.gov...

That one was close to peak #11

Then we had peak # 19

Northeast Blackout of 1965
en.wikipedia.org...

Peak #23 gave us...

Northeast Blackout of 2003
en.wikipedia.org...

Then I found peak #22... 1989

HydroQuebec Power Grid blackout in Quebec, Canada, in March of 1989 that the world truly realized the extent to which solar storms can impact the economy. The solar storm induced a nine-hour blackout which affected 6 million customers and ultimately cost this power company more than $10 million

www.magazine.noaa.gov...

March 13, 1989 - The Quebec Blackout Storm

Most newspapers that reported this event considered the spectacular aurora to be the most newsworthy aspect of the storm.

www.solarstorms.org...

So if #24 is going to be the biggest recorded... seems we have potential issues

Well, maybe it might teach people not to rely on technology so much; ) besides. ive never seen an aurora before! Kinda looking forward to it actually

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Geomagnetic disruptions caused by solar flares can affect people and animals. It can cause disorientation to people, and can affect animals ability to navigate, etc. If the animals couldn't find their way to where they usually were, people wouldn't find food where they normally did, causing famines.

Sounds like 'end of the world' stuff....

I was just looking at temporary power outages... but you make a good point...

Wonder if that was what effected the bees awhile back when they were not returning to the hive? And what ever happened with that anyway? Funny how you never hear the follow up. I see bees in my garden now...

the current sun storm is responsible for all GPS screw ups, and other navigational systems...


A pod of dolphins beached themselves... now when the hell do you see that????

now anyone who wants to debate this, I will blow my top at them.


Basically the mass ejections will get greater towards 2012, and seriously effect the weather.


Personally I dont care, Im dying as it is, and im looking forward to it.


watch the knowing, and no its not full of #, the end of the movie is quite close to what we are expecting.


think of us as lab rats for a higher intelligence.

Well,you might as well blow your top because we have had no solar storms or cme in quite awhile.The sun has been blank for a crazy amount of time.No sunspots=no cmes which equal no solarstorms.The lack of sunspots long term have been correlated with mini ice ages.
As far as gps dolphins etc...That can be contributed to our magnetic poles our magnetic poles have been wandering for years.If our magnetic poles did a complete shift their would be no ill effects on humans,but,animals internal directions would be screwed awhile as would airplanes,compasses,gps systems anything that relied on direction.
If solar cycle 24 does'nt pick up soon we won't even reach solar max in 2012.
Here is a website that updates daily and shows sunspots,corneal holes,neo's.They actually have an article today about the lack of sunspots.
spaceweather.com...
science.nasa.gov...

[edit on 1-4-2009 by dee132423]

[edit on 1-4-2009 by dee132423]

[edit on 1-4-2009 by dee132423]

Does anyone else find this interesting?
Check out this link to a recent NASA article: Earth's Solar Storm Shield

Earth’s magnetic field acts as a shield against the bombardment of particles continuously streaming from the sun. Because the solar particles (ions and electrons) are electrically charged, they feel magnetic forces and most are deflected by our planet's magnetic field. However, our magnetic field is a leaky shield and the number of particles breaching this shield depends on the orientation of the sun’s magnetic field. It had been thought that when the sun’s magnetic field is aligned with that of the Earth, the door is shut and that few if any solar particles enter Earth’s magnetic shield. The door was thought to open up when the solar magnetic field direction points opposite to Earth’s field, leading to more solar particles inside the shield. Surprisingly, recent observations by the THEMIS spacecraft fleet demonstrate that the opposite is true. "Twenty times more solar particles cross the Earth’s leaky magnetic shield when the sun’s magnetic field is aligned with that of the Earth compared to when the two magnetic fields are oppositely directed," said Marit Oieroset of the University of California, Berkeley, lead author of one of two papers on this research, published May 2008 in Geophysical Research Letters.

So...the Earth's polarity is aligned with the Coronal Mass Ejection, the CME blasts into the atmosphere at about half the speed of light, and hot plasma /matter envelopes the earth.

A plasma is a hot ionized gas consisting of approximately equal numbers of positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons. The characteristics of plasmas are significantly different from those of ordinary neutral gases so that plasmas are considered a distinct "fourth state of matter.

The temperatures of space plasmas are very high, ranging from several thousand degrees Celsius in the plasmasphere to several million degrees in the ring current. While the temperatures of the "cooler" plasmas of the ionosphere and plasmasphere are typically given in degrees Kelvin, those of the "hotter" magnetospheric plasmas are more commonly expressed in terms of the average kinetic energies of their constituent particles measured in "electron volts." An electron volt (eV) is the energy that an electron acquires as it is accelerated through a potential difference of one volt and is equivalent to 11,600 degrees Kelvin. Magnetospheric plasmas are often characterized as being "cold" or "hot." Although these labels are quite subjective, they are widely used in the space physics literature. As a rule of thumb, plasmas with temperatures less than about 100 eV are "cold," while those with temperatures ranging from 100 eV to 30 keV can be considered "hot."

What kind of image does that conjure in your mind?

At best we may be looking at communications and power disruptions and all the consequences that would bring, and at worst it's apocalyptic; air turns to fire, poles scatter and shift, the earth's crust rotates around it's core, etc.

Yes? No?

If a storm large enough hit it wound disrupt communications any thing electronic really.From this study it sounds like that is their main concern and the astronauts.I would like to know if they have done research on the last occurence of this.There has been extreme flares before on hit quebec's power qrid and knocked it out for awhile.I don't believe this would cause the earths crust to start rotating in an opposite direction.It would be an bombardment of particles not an object with mass.
People that are interested in these types of subjects should read Death from the skies it is an excellant book full of science and easy for a layperson to understand and he really puts into perspective how likely an cosmological event is to happen and the affects it would have on the planet and living beings.
I forgot to add if you are talking about magnetic poles they are always wandering they are never completely north and south.They do reverse direction from time to time and it has no correlation with mass extinctions.Scientists used to believe during the switch it would leave the earth open to more radiation etc...now they believe our defenses become stronger and they say were at least a hundred years from a complete switch.

[edit on 1-4-2009 by dee132423]

Originally posted by XIZTENZ
the current sun storm is responsible for all GPS screw ups, and other navigational systems...
A pod of dolphins beached themselves... now when the hell do you see that????

now anyone who wants to debate this, I will blow my top at them.

Well blow away because currently we are at an all time solar MINIMUM

More likely the NAVY Sonar doing that to the Dolphins

[edit on 2-4-2009 by zorgon]

I just realized some of you may be talking about geomagnetic storms from corneal holes which is a bombardment of particles which causes the auroras.These usually effect areas with large holes in the ozone layers of course a strong enough one and you can see auroras far south.These are not likely to cause any fires etc...

Consider that scientists theorize the atmosphere could essentially be scoured away by the plasma breaching the magnetosphere, and think that is possibly what happened on Mars.

Apparently the radical shifting of the poles has some effect of the Earth's core and is believed to trigger volcanic activity which in turn has some effect on the rotating crust theory.

The Earth can be divided into separate parts: an outer crust, a highly viscous mantle, a less viscous outer core, and a solid inner core made up of mostly iron and nickel.

Circulating magma in the molten outer core generates a weak magnetic field, which the researchers suspect may be leaking into the inner core and generating an electric current. The twisting force generated by this electromagnetic interaction may be what drives the inner core's rotation.

The Earth's major wobble is caused by the Moon and Sun tugging on the Earth's bulging equator, creating an effect that lasts 25,800 years called precession.

Many scientists firmly believe Earth's wobbles have caused the extinctions of life on Earth more than once. They have been responsible for massive earthquakes, major volcanic activities, and some say Earth's wobbles have caused the North and South Poles to change places.

Where did you find this article there hasn't been any mass extinctions every 26,000 years.This is a gradual process over 26,000 years not something that occurs suddenly one article that i'am linking states that effect is small to casual observing.
Here is also a great article about the current solar minimum.
www.universetoday.com...
Here is two on precession read the part about polar shifts
en.wikipedia.org...(astronomy)#Polar_shift_and_equinoxes_shift

csep10.phys.utk.edu...

I'll check out those links.

I just find it interesting...I mean, there's not much, if anything, folks could practically do about it anyway, if this phenomenon were to occur.

I have scattered recollections of articles I've read recently, but did not save or organize, so I'd have to go back and find some of this information.

The study quoted is not saying there's a cyclic mass extinction every 26,000 years, just that there is a cycle, and evidence of extinctions coinciding with some of the cycle periods.

I did read an article recently that talked about it seemed like some mass extinctions did occur at regular intervals.Their regular intervals was something like every 30-35 million years.According to their data we are still a few million years away.They believe for some reason we are more open to large pieces of space debris.However,like most things in science it is just speculation they still don't have a definite answer for causes of large scale extinctions.I also believe no matter what happens on earth some kind of life will always be here.Well,unless we don't figure out some way to keep from being sucked into the sun in 4.5 billion years when the sun expands into a red giant.Currently that is the only true doomsday prediction that I know of!

Originally posted by zorgon
Wonder if that was what effected the bees awhile back when they were not returning to the hive? And what ever happened with that anyway? Funny how you never hear the follow up. I see bees in my garden now...

That's an interesting statement about the bees. But I think people also tend to overlook artificial/man-made sources of electromagnetic radiaton into the environment. Cell-phone towers, AM/FM radio, Pretty much everything is everywhere these days ("can you hear me now?").

Detailed studies have been conducted by multiple universities around the country on the biological effects of electromagnetic radiation. These seem to prove long term effects of exposure to radio waves and man-made radiation can cause a whole laundry list of symptoms and side-effects. People used to think living under powerlines was unsafe.. Living pretty much anywhere near a major city is unsafe these days. And when you consider what we put in our foods and vaccines its no wonder why autism is getting worse.

Simply living in your home can cause you to go nuts if you have EMF "bubbles" where the field strength is off the charts (Some call it "EMF sickness"). They can be caused by exposed wires, non-exposed wires, there are a variety of causes for these high EMF areas.. From what I hear some people are more sensitive to others.

I'm not saying that geomagnetic and/or solar activity can't directly affect animal physiology/biology. I'm just saying that when you consider all the articial/man-made factors that can have direct detrimental effects on larger biological organisms in the vicinity (like humans), those effects are logically going to be magnified for smaller animals like bees. Alot of folks probably overlook this though.

-ChriS