Solar storm underway: ‘A taste of what’s going to come’ next year
Streaming toward Earth right now is a blast of radiation and charged plasma the sun released Sunday night. Space weather experts warned about possible damage to the electrical grid when the charged particles hit Earth with full force midday Tuesday. 
A flare shoots out of the top of the sun Sunday night. (AP)
Despite the warnings that the solar storm would be the biggest since 2005, the National Weather Service is rating the storm a 3 on a scale of 1 (minor) to 5 (extreme).
Prof. W. Jeffrey Hughes, director of the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling at Boston University, said that the storm was significant only in relation to the past six years, but when put into historical perspective, it was probably not going to be a major storm — and that far larger storms will most likely occur over the next two years.
“In the last six years, we’ve gone through the quietest solar period in more than a 100 years,” Hughes said. Next year will be a maximum peak for sun activity, so Hughes says the solar disturbances are predictable.
“Activity should pick up over the next few years. This is the biggest taste of what’s going to come next year and 2014.” Solar activity waxes and wanes on a roughly 11-year cycle. Hughes says the sun has been relatively quiet since 2002.
This image provided by NASA shows the Sun unleashing a medium-sized flare, a minor radiation storm and a spectacular coronal mass ejection on June 7, 2011. (AP)
Doug Biesecker, a physicist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., told The Post’s Brian Vastag on Monday that “Satellite operators could be experiencing trouble, and there are probably impacts as well to high-frequency [radio] communications in polar regions.” Radio blackouts could force airlines to reroute flights over the poles.
NASA sent out an alert to the White House and satellite operators Monday. Hughes said the increased attention around a solar storm is in some sense good “because it raises public awareness, but one has to be a little bit careful about crying wolf.”
The solar storm, along with sending increased radiation, will also create a more brilliant Northern Lights show. Expect some spectacular photos Wednesday. end quote.
It sounds like the next two years of high intensity solar storms will let us as humans know if we have designed satellites in such a way that they can survive these storms. It also will tell us more if Astronauts will be safe under these conditions long term. And we will also see if any more electrical generation stations on earth are knocked out like they were in Canada in 1989.
A flare shoots out of the top of the sun Sunday night. (AP)
Despite the warnings that the solar storm would be the biggest since 2005, the National Weather Service is rating the storm a 3 on a scale of 1 (minor) to 5 (extreme).
Prof. W. Jeffrey Hughes, director of the Center for Integrated Space Weather Modeling at Boston University, said that the storm was significant only in relation to the past six years, but when put into historical perspective, it was probably not going to be a major storm — and that far larger storms will most likely occur over the next two years.
“In the last six years, we’ve gone through the quietest solar period in more than a 100 years,” Hughes said. Next year will be a maximum peak for sun activity, so Hughes says the solar disturbances are predictable.
“Activity should pick up over the next few years. This is the biggest taste of what’s going to come next year and 2014.” Solar activity waxes and wanes on a roughly 11-year cycle. Hughes says the sun has been relatively quiet since 2002.
This image provided by NASA shows the Sun unleashing a medium-sized flare, a minor radiation storm and a spectacular coronal mass ejection on June 7, 2011. (AP)
Doug Biesecker, a physicist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, Colo., told The Post’s Brian Vastag on Monday that “Satellite operators could be experiencing trouble, and there are probably impacts as well to high-frequency [radio] communications in polar regions.” Radio blackouts could force airlines to reroute flights over the poles.
NASA sent out an alert to the White House and satellite operators Monday. Hughes said the increased attention around a solar storm is in some sense good “because it raises public awareness, but one has to be a little bit careful about crying wolf.”
The solar storm, along with sending increased radiation, will also create a more brilliant Northern Lights show. Expect some spectacular photos Wednesday. end quote.
It sounds like the next two years of high intensity solar storms will let us as humans know if we have designed satellites in such a way that they can survive these storms. It also will tell us more if Astronauts will be safe under these conditions long term. And we will also see if any more electrical generation stations on earth are knocked out like they were in Canada in 1989.
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