Sunspot 1429 Not Done Yet - Releases 2 More M-Class Flares

[Elimentals]

On March 10, 2012, the sun released another two M-class flares. One, rated as an M5.4, peaked at 12:27 AM EST. The second, rated as an M 8.4, peaked at 12:44 PM EST.

These two flares came from the same Active Region (AR) on the sun, designated number 1429, that has already produced three X-class and numerous M-class flares over the past week.

On March 8, 2012 at 10:53 PM EST the sun erupted with an M6.3 class flare, and about an hour later released a coronal mass ejection (CME). These eruptions came from active region 1429 that has so far produced two X class flares, and numerous M-class flares.

NASA's Space Weather Center models measure the CME traveling at speeds of over 700 miles per second. The CME should reach Earth's magnetosphere, the protective envelope of magnetic fields around the planet, early in the morning of March 11.

Source NASA

Simply put, hold on to your seats more to follow.

If you don't know much about CME's I think I found the best ever explanation:

Solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are more likely to happen from sun spots. These events send out massive amounts ionized particles and radiation from the Sun - these are basically the byproducts of nuclear fusion and heat that are normally held in the Sun by magnetic fields. Sun spots are places where the magnetic field lines are "twisted up" like a knot. A flare or CME is when the knotted field lines break like a Gordian knot.

Eventually (in a few days), if the Earth is positions (wrong) relative to the flare/CME direction, these particles and radiation will hit the Earth

Normally this isn't much of problem because the Earth's magnetic deflects the particles to the north/south poles. The radiation is mostly absorbed then by the thicker lower atmosphere. But not all of it - there is a rise in ambient radiation levels as a result. Not generally fatal or dangerous but elevated. Mostly not good to be a polar bear or penguin but they survive.

The side effects of the particle radiation is ionization of upper atmosphere gas molecules which when they recombine back to molecules produce light which is seen as the auroras borealis/australis or northern/southern lights.

A side effect of this is something amateur radio operators like: ionospheric changes that alter radio propagation. Right now you'll see folks at amateurradio making plans for long-distance high frequency contacts that would not normally be possible without the recent CME.

The radiation and particles also increase the temperature of the upper atmosphere which expands the atmosphere further into space. For Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites this causes a small but noticeable increase in friction which will alter their orbits slightly and by some fraction cause them to re-enter the atmosphere sooner (say 10 years without to 9 years 11 months 29 days with the flare/CME).

In addition, the Earth's magnetic field isn't perfectly rigid when impacted by the rush of particles; it bends and moves. And by Faraday's law of induction, this moving magnetic field can induce currents in conductors on Earth (this is how generators convert physical motion to electricity). Conductors optimal for collecting this generated current are electrical transmission lines because of their length (currents are generated per unit length of conductor "cut" by the moving field). Short conductors (human-scaled size) are not significant affected - the currents induced are smaller than typical radio transmitter induced currents.

This can though induce transients in something larger, like a power grid. However transients are a known quantity and can occur by other means (cutting off a generator suddenly from a grid) so circuits are in already place in all power grids to suppress transients.

But there are limits to how large a transient can be and still be suppressed "enough". On the other hand, if it become big enough, the transient can destroy local substation equipment and thus prevent it from propagating through out the entire grid.

So some small risk of damage to electrical devices plugged into the grid but so small you probably need to worry more about lightning transients if you live someplace that gets a lot of thunderstorms. From:Mantra

 

[killadoob]

O it's going to get worse as well.