The Feb. 14 occurred is now known as the "Valentine's Day Storm", a powerful solar flare that was aimed directly at Earth . NASA detected an X-class flare mass, the more powerful it is capable of emitting the Sun and the largest detected in four years. The phenomenon was felt in our planet in the form of spectacular auroras in the north and some failures in China's satellite networks, but, fortunately, little more. Scientists warned that there would be more similar storms and no mistake. On 24 other flare was recorded by the instruments of a NASA probe and Tuesday, according to Spaceweather.com, the Sun sent one of his dangerous greetings. A solar wind stream reached the magnetic field causing the appearance of auroras in Northern Ireland, Latvia, Norway and Sweden.
Although still to be confirmed, the solar flare that caused the new impact can be classified in Class M, not as high as that of San Valetin but the second most powerful enough to cause a geomagnetic storm is made noted in the skies of our planet. Possibly reach many more like it-is expected in the coming months will produce at least 1,700 geomagnetic storms, "because the sun has begun a cycle of activity that can be dangerous. In recent weeks, large sunspots have appeared and disappeared from the surface of our star.
catastrophic effects
Sun calm periods alternating with others of great violence in cycles that last eleven years. The latest low of just out, has been much longer and quieter than usual. Now things have changed.
Scientists are preparing for a large solar storm of catastrophic proportions. If a solar flare is strong enough can lead to a coronal mass ejection, a dense plasma cloud millions of degrees it may take to reach Earth from 18 hours to three days. You can even harm our power plants and cause outages. For this reason, scientists are struggling to monitor very closely, solar activity
Source
recent samples
All this comes from a sample of the sun that was taken last week. was caught in the largest solar flare 5 years, which sent a stream of plasma in the direction to Earth at 580 kilometers per second. This storm created some auroras that disrupted radio communications.
Professor Sir John Beddington , government chief scientific adviser, warns that "the issue of space weather has to be taken seriously. We had a relatively quiet period in regard to the issue, but we can not expect this state of calm will continue. "
"At the same time, during this period has increased the vulnerability of our systems in a spectacular way " said Beddington, and warns that "the situation has changed. We must be vigilant if it is necessary to give a alert. "
Solar storms
are caused by massive explosions in the sun. These free waves and ultraviolet radiation X-rays that strike Earth in minutes, disrupting radio signals and damaging the electronic components of satellites.
These waves will continue for 10 to 20 minutes later a burst of energetic particles that cause even more havoc. And 15 to 30 hours later the supercharged plasma hits the Earth's magnetic field and create the aurora.
For Jane Lubchenco, head of the Oceanic Administration and U.S. Air, "the main question is to know when" will produce this phenomenon and "how to be big."
The sun goes through a cycle of 11 years on average, approximately, in their regular activities. The last solar maximum phenomena dating back to 2001 and its latest low was particularly weak and long duration.
Solar storms are not new. The first important phenomenon was recorded by British astronomer Richard Carrington in 1859 . In 1972, a huge solar flare cut the telephone in part the State of Illinois , according to NASA, which also talks about a similar case in 1989 that "provoked geomagnetic storms that disrupted electric power transmission and caused power outages throughout the Canadian province of Quebec ." Source
0 comments:
Post a Comment