Sun Solar Flare Activity has increased dramatically recently. This has the potential to cause havoc especially to satellite systems, probes and telecommunications. So why is this?
Sun Solar Flare Activity
A solar storm occurs when high-energy particles from the sun hit the Earth. These clouds of particles are released in explosive outbursts from the Sun. From Earth the Sun does not seem to change at all – not that I’d suggest trying to look directly at it to check this out (you would damage your eyes if you tried).
Nevertheless, with the right knowledge and scientific equipment it is possible to see dark regions called sunspots. If you studied the Sun using such equipment one of the first things you would notice is our hottest neighbour is a very turbulent place with bright loops of matter writhing and erupting over its surface.
Sun’s temper tantrum
The Sun is, in effect, a giant nuclear reactor and every so often it throws a temper tantrum, when this happens the Sun throws out an intense burst of radiation, just like a baby spitting out its dummy in rage.
These bursts of radiation are called solar flares and occur when magnetic energy which is stored in its atmosphere are suddenly released. Solar flares are sometimes associated with the release of high energy particles into space which are known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
A large CME can contain billions of tonnes of gas and other matter that pours into space at several million km per hour. The charged particles stream towards any object in their path. When these particles collide with the Earth, they can cause a geomagnetic storm – a disturbance in the magnetic sheath (or magnetosphere) that surrounds our planet. This has happened frequently over the millennia and does no damage to us or our world, in fact it has a rather attractive side effect and produces the Aurora borealis and australis.
Particularly powerful storms cause these northern or southern lights to become visible at lower latitudes like in Scotland recently. Whilst these storms are benign to the planet they can cause havoc with technology and this can get engineers and scientists hot-under-the-collar.
Recently, there has been a large CME and as usual certain sections of the press went into panic mode. As it happens the recent CME has not caused the chaos expected such as inferring with sat-navs, knocking out satellites or causing problems with aircraft systems – it did produce a fine light show or two though! Joseph Kunches, a scientist with US weather agency Noaa said
“The freight train has gone by, and is still going by, and now we’re just watching for how this is all going to shake out”.
“This week’s solar storms have been stronger than those of recent years but moderate when viewed over the longer term,” said Paul Cannon, director of the Poynting Institute at the University of Birmingham. “Most technological systems appear to be behaving well so far. However, given the Sun’s activity forecasters will be closely watching the geospace environment over the next few days.” He added.
It seems that we are not quite out of the woods yet, as activity near the Sun’s surface rises and falls through an 11-year cycle this one is due to peak in 2013 or 2014. So whilst Earth’s technology appears to be holding up well so far, forecasters will be studying the Sun’s strops for awhile yet.
Daily Horoscope
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