Small media flare: Big sunspot patch hurles a few hunks of chromosphere and other plasma our way
One can only suppose that our recently laggard sun might still pull a Maunder Minimum or something similarly disconcertingly feeble on us, but right now it has a thoroughly muscular cluster of sunspots, Region 1302, and they’re aiming their eruptions into Earth’s sector. Supposedly, last night might have brought spectacular aurorae to the high latitudes. The Nat’l Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center says the geomagnetic ruckus is severe up there, but any aurorae were probably visible mainly over Europe’s and Asia’s far north. Judging by the solar cycle prediction plot, the service is sticking with expectation that sunspot ructions or not, the overall current cycle is a pipsqueak.
That did not stop heavy hoo-hah in some media in their dispatches on the supposed walloping underway and in the pipeline:
- International Business Times – Jamie Lewis: Sunspot’s Solar Flares Could Potentially Blow Every Electrical Circuit on Earth ; Really, IBT, really? Every one? Potentially is a big screen behind which to shield madness, but it’s not big enough. My electric watch has a circuit. I bet no solar storm ever in the history of Earth could blow it. The IBT appears to occupy a far fringe of media, not a bad place to start trackin’ (and leave as soon as possible). If you like to look in on lunacy once in awhile and this one doesn’t start your motors, I see that IBT disptaches are among cited sources for this rendition of reality: Space Weather Monitor: Solar Flares Could Unleash Nuclear Chaos on Planet Earth; Actually, that one harbors a shred of possible rational worry, maybe. If some day a solar storm did knock grids out widely and for days or weeks — well, what would a nuclear operator do after the diesel fuel ran out without a tank truck in sight? Seems far-fetched. So did a 40-foot+ tsunami on Japan’s east coast.
Daily Mail (UK) Ted Thornhill: The Day the Earth Went ‘Phut’? Earth in cross-hairs of gigantic solar storm that could blow circuits of ANYTHING from satellite TV to the electric power grid ; Yes, and unleash an egregious example of the false range in a newspaper headline.- Space.com – Mike Wall: Huge sun storm may super-charge northern lights tonight ; Were back in the land of the sane, now.
- Los Angeles Times (blog) Deborah Netburn: Geomagnetic Storm may bring northern lights to you;
- USA Today (Science Fair blog) Dan Vergano: Sun delivers glancing solar storm blast at Earth;
- Universe Today – Adrian West: Massive Sunspot 1302 ; It’s a bit blurry, but this photo also gives reporter West credit. Along with intervening clouds, this sunset vista also clearly shows the spots. They look a little like the Hawaiian Islands.
Grist for the Mill:
NASA Goddard Press Release ; NOAA Space Weather Pred. Ctr. Geomagnetic Storm Update which, you will notice, is right off the agency’s Facebook page;
- Charlie Petit
