Extremely Rare Solar Flare

[Friends just call me Ross]

 

https://spaceweather.com

 

"'EXTREMELY RARE' FARSIDE CME: Something big just happened on the farside of the sun. During the early hours of March 13th, SOHO coronagraphs recorded a farside halo CME apparently leaving the sun faster than 3000 km/s.

 

Because of its extreme speed, this CME may be classified as "extremely rare," a fast-mover that occurs only once every decade or so. A NASA model of the event shows the CME heading almost directly away from Earth. Good thing!

 

Although the CME is not Earth-directed, it has nevertheless touched our planet. See all the snowy dots and streaks in the coronagraph movie above? Those are energetic particles accelerated by shock waves in the CME. They create short-lived luminous speckles when they hit SOHO's digital camera.

 

NOAA's GOES-16 satellite has detected the particles reaching Earth--all from the CME's backside. Imagine what a frontside blast would have been like! Earth's magnetic field is funneling the particles toward the poles where a type of radio blackout is underway--a polar cap absorption (PCA) event."

 

Glad it exploded on the BACKside of our star. 😎

[BLEmom]

What does it mean “energetic particles “?  What do they do?  Would there be some benefit like lightening?

[Friends just call me Ross]

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/coronal-mass-ejections

 

CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun’s corona. They can eject billions of tons of coronal material and carry an embedded magnetic field (frozen in flux) that is stronger than the background solar wind interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) strength. CMEs travel outward from the Sun at speeds ranging from slower than 250 kilometers per second (km/s) to as fast as near 3000 km/s. The fastest Earth-directed CMEs can reach our planet in as little as 15-18 hours. Slower CMEs can take several days to arrive. They expand in size as they propagate away from the Sun and larger CMEs can reach a size comprising nearly a quarter of the space between Earth and the Sun by the time it reaches our planet."

 

 

When the CME' s are strong enough and are directed towards earth, they cause chaos with power grids and shortwave radio signals.

But they can also produce spectacular auroras. 

 

 

[Hotteok]

Dubstep music is playing in the background in the streets as I’m walking and reading this and it fits!

Edited March 14, 2023 by Hotteok

[Friends just call me Ross]

UPDATE:

 

earthsky.org

 

"This week’s history-making halo event

 

Today’s top news: We’re still seeing the effects of the massive coronal mass ejection (CME) from the sun’s far side, the side we can’t see from Earth. It happened around 3:30 UTC on March 13, 2023 (overnight on March 12, for the Americas).

 

If this backside eruption had happened on the sun’s Earth-facing side, we could have experienced a solar event as big as – and maybe bigger than – the most infamous solar event in modern history, the Carrington Event of September 1859. That gigantic CME had a profound impact on human society in 1859.

 

Given our modern dependence on technology, its effect – if it happened today – would have been significantly larger.

 

We’re lucky this week’s event happened on the far side! And – as a more advanced society than that of 1859 – we have a spacecraft, Parker Solar Probe, on the side of the sun where the event occurred. Parker Solar Probe took the full brunt of the eruption. But it should provide unprecedented data on this history-making sun event, to us at our nice safe distance here on Earth.

 

Solar scientists are giddy with anticipation, waiting for the data to become available. And, in the meantime, Earth is still experiencing an increase in solar energetic particles, which are creating radio blackouts at Earth’s magnetic poles.

 

It’s very likely the March 12-13 event will end up being the largest coronal mass ejection of Solar Cycle 25.

 

The speed of the blast has been estimated at greater than 3,000 km/s or about 10 million km/h.

 

Only one such event is statistically expected per solar cycle."

 

 

10 million kilometers per hour???!!!

Talk about WARP speed!

 

☀️

[Friends just call me Ross]

What goes around, comes around...

 

Sounds like Earth's Star may have some more surprises in store for us.

 

 https://spaceweather.com

 

 

[Friends just call me Ross]

Our star just fired a photon torpedo.  🥸 (AKA: an X-Class solar flare)

https://earthsky.org/sun/sun-activity-solar-flare-cme-aurora-updates/

 

 

                                                                   

 

                                                                                                

[hatcheckgirl]

I looked up at the sky this morning, and saw this beautiful pink glow. “At least seven coronal mass ejections from sun have been observed, according to a US agency, after a severe geomagnetic storm event was expected to impact Earth.”

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-10/bom-warns-level-g4-geomagnetic-storm-to-impact-earth/103833576

Though I couldn’t see the Aurora on the horizon, the photos beamed back the beauty of this celestial event in the early morning sky.

 

 

 

Edited May 10 by hatcheckgirl

[Dolce vita]

40 minutes ago, hatcheckgirl said:

J'ai levé les yeux vers le ciel ce matin et j'ai vu cette belle lueur rose. "Au moins sept éjections de masse coronale du soleil ont été observées, selon une agence américaine, après qu'une grave tempête géomagnétique aurait dû toucher la Terre."

^ https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-10/bom-warns-level-g4-geomagnétique-storm-to-impact-earth/103833576

Même si je ne pouvais pas voir l'Aurora à l'horizon, les photos renvoyaient la beauté de cet événement céleste dans le ciel du petit matin.

 

 

 

The photo with the cat: Hitchcockian atmosphere, a  little scary...

[ChrisC]

I’m completely blown away! I didn’t think I would see this until the paradise.

The fox posed nicely for the 3 second exposure and then walked off.