Solar Storm peak

So I've been reading on this prediction about a solar storm on July 7, 2009, and I encounter some pictures of a day ago or two and shows how the sun is acting up, and how NASA hasn't said anything yet on solar storms coming in July 7, 2009 but NASA mentioned in February of this year (2009) that solar storms may start occurring as early as summer 2009. NASA officially confirmed that solar storms will start increasing as we approach the peak of the sun (in 2012). The solar storms are obviously going to get stronger and cause more damage/fatalities.

Here is a link to one of the pictures

stereo-ssc.nascom.nasa.gov...

[edit on 5-7-2009 by ^anubis^]

S&F

good find, was waiting on some sort of update with regards to the 7th of july, as its only 2 days well 1 day wer i live away.

Originally posted by ^anubis^
So I've been reading on this prediction about a solar storm on July 7, 2009,

No link about the prediction? Any reason to think it might be credible?

You can see nearly live pictures here:

SUN-real time

If we see a huge Coronal mass ejection heading at us, we will have time to shut down critical power systems etc before it fries all of them.

The current forecast does not indicate much chance of active geomagnetic storms for the next 48 hours (which would include the 7th).
spaceweather.com...
(Left side of the screen, "SPACE WEATHER NOAA Forecasts")

reply to post by Arbitrageur


The jelly fish crop circle and one other one were both interpreted as a solar storm on July 7th.
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...

[edit on 7/6/2009 by bl4ke360]

reply to post by bl4ke360


Actually, the crop vandals are not supposed to be predicting a solar storm on the 7th, but the arrival of the storm at Earth. There is a difference.

Both of those features suggest that a solar storm may impact Earth on July 7, 2009, as has already been suggested by several other crop pictures from April or May (see bishopcannings or roundway2).

reply to post by Phage


Since it only takes minutes for the storm to reach Earth, that means the storm itself and the arrival will obviously both happen on the same day...

reply to post by bl4ke360

No.

The solar wind which carries the products of the storm to Earth usually take 3-4 days to reach Earth. There are exceptions. The massive storm of 1859 arrived in 18 hours but the current activity is no where near the level of activity which created that event.

The solar wind does not travel at the speed of light, it cannot take minutes for the magnetosphere to react to a solar storm. There are forms of electromagnetic radiation produced by solar storms and they do travel at the speed of light but they do not affect the magnetosphere and are absorbed by our atmosphere before they can do any damage on the surface.




[edit on 7/6/2009 by Phage]

reply to post by bl4ke360

It takes about 8 minutes for the sun's light to arrive but the CMEs can take a lot longer, the time probably depends on the velocity of the CME.

This one took about 33 hours to hit Earth: CME-2005

reply to post by Phage
Thanks for the forecast link. I wonder if those forecasts are more accurate than the ones from my local weatherman?


reply to post by bl4ke360
Thanks for the links.

I guess there's really no other way to interpret those crop circles. (facepalm)

What i would like to point out, is that sunspot activity has not always followed that which has been predicted.

In 2005, a predicted 'quiet' year for solar activity (the minimum being 2006) several x class flares were observed throughout the year.

On January 20th of that year an x7 class flare reached earth close to the speed of light. Which would result in only taking minutes rather than hours to reach us.

Here's a link to the spaceweather article.

www.spaceweather.com...

So what is the actual damage we can expect from a strong solar storm? Whether it's the one on the 7th or any other one. I ask because I don't actually recall any mention of fatalities or major destruction of any sort caused by a solar storm...ever in my life.

Hang on... "More" damage and fatalities?

That's getting a bit ahead of things. The only people that need to worry about being killed by a solar flare are the ones floating in space outside of the earth's protective magnetic bubble.

We're well in the bubble. This is one tiny little flare.

And in actual fact, I hope the sun really gears up and goes absolutely bonkers firing off it's wares, or else the solar system's heliopause might weaken more and then we'd all be at the mercy of deadly cosmic rays:

www.universetoday.com...

A new solar flare is now being ejected from the sun, but the Lasco C2 image hasn't updated in over an hour and a 1/2, when it normally updates at least every 20 minutes.

As usual, just when something is happening, the nasa site isn't updating correctly.


sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov...:detector=C2

Very frustrating.

Originally posted by amazing
So what is the actual damage we can expect from a strong solar storm? Whether it's the one on the 7th or any other one. I ask because I don't actually recall any mention of fatalities or major destruction of any sort caused by a solar storm...ever in my life.

Don't expect fatalities. If I was near the north or south pole I would be worried about possible bodily harm, but most of us don't need to worry about that.
X-class disruptions can bring down power grids and disrupt communications. If the anomaly doesn't travel too fast we can and do try to take action to protect our grids when we see one coming.

reply to post by Julie Washington

We can't see flares directed toward Earth in LASCO C2 image. The corongraph disk conceals them from us. The EIT 195 image is more useful for that purpose. The latest update for that is about 30 minutes old.


The GOES x-ray flux reading is showing a bit of a blip right now. That's a good indicator of the intensity of the flare.

Another link to backup previous post.

science.nasa.gov...

On January 20th, 2005, a giant sunspot named "NOAA 720" exploded. The blast sparked an X-class solar flare, the most powerful kind, and hurled a billion-ton cloud of electrified gas (a "coronal mass ejection") into space. Solar protons accelerated to nearly light speed by the explosion reached the Earth-Moon system minutes after the flare

[edit on 6/7/09 by logicalview]

reply to post by logicalview


Thanks for the link about proton storms. A proton storm is one of the other forms of radiation produced by solar storms, though admittedly, not electromagnetic in nature. It also came from a sunspot much larger than what we're seeing now.

It was not the CME which reached Earth so rapidly, but the proton storm produced by it. The proton storm had no effect on Earth's surface and it did not create a geomagnetic storm. I don't think it affected the magnetosphere much, if at all.
science.nasa.gov...

[edit on 7/6/2009 by Phage]

This morning on the below link:

www.spaceweather.com...

SUDDEN SUNSPOT: What a difference 48 hours can make. Only two days ago the sun was blank and calm, displaying the sort of unrelenting quiet we've come to expect from the deepest solar minimum in a century. Then, with startling rapidity, sunspot 1024 burst onto the scene: movie. Unlike other recent "sun-specks", this active region is a full-fledged sunspot group with more than a dozen planet-sized dark cores, crackling with B- and C-class solar flares.

"Sunspot 1024 is putting on a spectacular show," says amateur astronomer David Tyler of Buckinghamshire UK, who caught it in mid-flare on July 5th:

"This is the best sunspot I've seen in two years," agrees Michael Buxton of Ocean Beach, California. "Here is a one-hour time lapse movie of activity in the sunspot's core. It is exciting to watch."

The magnetic polarity of sunspot 1024 identifies it as a member of new Solar Cycle 24. That makes sense. New research shows that solar jet streams are beginning to stimulate new-cycle sunspot production. Sunspot 1024 appears to be a sign of the process at work, heralding more to come. Monitoring is encouraged.

reply to post by questioningall

Interesting comment on your profile page questioningall:
"Comment from: NeverSlaves on: 3-7-2009 @ 10:22 AM
Hey, nice thread you got started on the Solar Flare crop circles. Just wanted to bring something directly to your attention. The movie Knowing is coming out on DVD the exact day that this crop circle is saying the flares will hit. (snip) ...it is not outside the realm of possibilty that this crop circle was paid for and produced by the movie studio to generate buzz about the dvd within the alien obsessed counter-culture. I could be wrong, but that is my theory and I wanted you to see this."

So we have a prediction of solar activity, or that a DVD is coming out?
I wish I could ask William of Ockham, but I think I know what he would say.