The Sun Goes Ape Spit

[Mech]

science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/12nov_haywire.htm?list658227


November 12, 2003: Imagine you're in California. It's July, the middle of summer. The sun rises early; bright rays warm the ground. It's a great day to be outside. Then, suddenly, it begins to snow--not just a little flurry, but a swirling blizzard that doesn't stop for two weeks.

That's what forecasters call unseasonal weather.

It sounds incredible, but "something like that just happened on the sun," says David Hathaway, a solar physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.

Only a few weeks ago solar activity was low. The face of the sun was nearly blank--"very few sunspots," says Hathaway--and space weather near Earth was mild. "Mild is just what we expect at this point in the 11-year solar cycle," he explains. "The most recent maximum was in 2001, and solar activity has been declining ever since."

Then, suddenly, in late October the sun began to behave strangely. Three giant sunspots appeared, each one larger than the planet Jupiter. In California where smoke from wildfires dimmed the sun enough to look straight at it, casual sky watchers were startled by the huge blotches on the sun. One of them, named "sunspot 486," was the biggest in 13 years.

Right: Astrophotographer Bob Sandy of Virginia took this picture of giant sunspot 486 emerging over the sun's limb on Oct. 23, 2003. It is preceded by another giant spot, numbered 484. [more]

Sunspots cause solar flares and, usually, the biggest flares come from the biggest spots. The three giant sunspots unleashed eleven X-class flares in only fourteen days--equaling the total number observed during the previous twelve months. "This was a big surprise," says Hathaway.

The effects on Earth were many: Radio blackouts disrupted communications. Solar protons penetrated Earth's upper atmosphere, exposing astronauts and some air travelers to radiation doses equal to a medical chest X-ray. Auroras appeared all over the world--in Florida, Texas, Australia and many other places where they are seldom seen.

Researchers rank solar flares according to their x-ray power output. C-flares are the weakest. M-flares are middling-strong. X-flares are the most powerful. Each category has subdivisions: e.g., X1, X2, X3 and so on. A typical X-flare registers X1 or X2. On Nov. 4th, sunspot 486 unleashed an X28 flare--the most powerful ever recorded.

Left: An extreme-ultraviolet telescope onboard the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) captured this false-color movie of the Nov. 4, 2003, X28 superflare near the sun's limb. [more]

"In 1989 a flare about half that strong caused a widespread power blackout in Quebec," recalls Hathaway. Last week's blast was aimed away from Earth, so its effects on our planet were slight--a bit of good luck.

All this happened two years after solar maximum, which raises a question: is something wrong with the solar cycle? Is the sun going haywire?

"Nothing's wrong," reassures Hathaway. The sun isn't about to explode, nor is the sunspot cycle broken. "These latest sunspots were whoppers," he allows, "but sunspot counts averaged over many weeks are still declining as predicted. We're still on course for a solar minimum in 2006."

[DannyRock]

"Nothing's wrong," reassures Hathaway. The sun isn't about to explode, nor is the sunspot cycle broken. "These latest sunspots were whoppers," he allows, "but sunspot counts averaged over many weeks are still declining as predicted. We're still on course for a solar minimum in 2006."

We might be on course for a solar minimum, but the size of the sunspots and their level of activity bothers me.

As you can see, we have a new sunspot cluster that has come into view and it's called 501 and may be the same cluster that was launching some pretty good sized CMEs on the back side of the sun not too long ago.





There was an event that occurred at 0006 UTC on 11/14, but it wasn't too big.



The last C2 image was taken at 2150 UTC on 11/14.
The last C3 image was taken at 2142 UTC on 11/14.

[Cams]

Heh, no board will ever be the same without the classic danny rock solar forecast posts ;D

[swampgas]

You got that right cams.

The gang is just about all here, and I'm sure we'll find the missing people.

[boomerchick]

From Whitley Strieber's Journal

www.unknowncountry.com/journal/

The sun is in the most unusual state that has ever been observed. At a time when it should be recording greatly diminished sunspot activity, the most active sunspot ever observed has just finished crossing its face. The largest solar flare ever recorded--by far--exploded out of this sunspot on November 4.
This extraordinary event wasn't headline news. In fact, it didn't even make the back pages of most papers and news websites, let alone the broadcast news. Unknowncountry, Earthfiles and the NASA and NOAA sites were the only places where it was really featured as a major news item.

The big media was probably making a big mistake. Here’s why. Since we have been observing the sun, it has followed a regular 11-year sunspot cycle. At the height of the cycle, its face is covered with sunspots and many flares send various types of radiation out into space. Occasionally, this radiation is powerful enough to cause some sort of damage on earth. Usually it takes the form of a brief radio blackout, or an FAA warning that people in high flying aircraft might be subjected to a slight increase in radiation exposure. In 1989, there was significant damage to a major Canadian power grid as a result of a coronal mass ejection reaching the earth’s surface.

Since then, power systems worldwide have been ‘hardened’ against the recurrence of such an event, and the recent spate of flares caused no damage.

So, why bother to report on this? Why send out bulletins about solar flares?

Because the solar system is at the beginning of a period of profound change, and it is vitally important that we understand it and prepare for it.

The most recent solar maximum should have begun to wane after the sun’s magnetic pole flipped, which it does at the end of each 11 year cycle. However, this time, something went wrong. The pole did not flip completely. Instead, it stopped midway in its transition. This means that the sun’s magnetic field is now weaker than it has been at any time in known history.

This is going to have all sorts of unforeseen consequences, but one consequence is already known and is happening right now: it is that interstellar dust is entering the solar system. Normally, the sun’s magnetic field keeps such dust at bay. But not now. Now, for the first time, possibly, in millions of years, this dust is present here.

Superficially, one would think that a miniscule amount of dust would make little difference, but there is substantial evidence that the presence of cosmic dust causes stars to act in unstable ways. If so, then we are likely to see the end of the 11 year solar cycle that has been an important contributor to our stable weather pattern for so long, and the beginning of a much more unpredictable situation.

In a worst-case scenario, we will see flares like the one that took place on November 4 pointed directly at earth. Had that flare erupted forty-eight hours earlier, it would have hit us head on. The big media certainly wouldn’t have missed that story, as even hardened power grids would have been knocked out by it. Planes would have had to be grounded. There would have been significant weather effects. Some radiation would have reached the surface, although not enough to pose any health risk. Auroras would have been visible at every latitude. Radio blackouts would have been general. Satellite damage would have been significant. There would have been a possibility that the astronauts aboard the International Space Station would have received an unhealthy radiation dose.

One scientist, Dr. Paul LaViolette, theorizes that the center of our galaxy is exploding, and sending out superluminal pulses that pass through the solar system approximately every ten thousand years. If so, he believes, we are due for another one about now. Such a pulse would be preceded by a wave-front of cosmic dust. And, indeed, dust is appearing in our vicinity at this time, although it is not clear that it’s coming from the direction of the galactic center.

But if Dr. LaViolette is right, this solar max won’t end. Instead, we will see more and bigger sunspots. Over time, the sun will change enough to affect not only short-lived phenomena like upper atmospheric radiation, but weather and even earth’s basic climate.

So it’s important to follow the sun, whether the big media knows it or not. That’s why Unknowncountry exists—to follow the kind of news that the conventional wisdom tells you to ignore. What’s more important, after all: knowing that elephants at the National Zoo in Washington recently trampled some pumpkins, which CNN recently thought was worth telling you, or understanding where the sun is going to take six billion human lives, which struck us as a big story?

I think we've got the best answer to that one.

___________________

Hang on!