Auroral Activity

[tw]

Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) are rarely viewed farther south. When it happens, rarely with sufficient warning. Over the past week, the sun had erupted quite violently on its far side. Those spots have now rotated around towards earth. A class M flare has just recently erupted at the earth. So Northern lights observed in more southern locations is possible. Starting at time of this post and possible for the next 18 hours.

Just look north (or south) at night. You might get lucky.

Unfortunately, a system that normally announces such events is down for software upgrades.

[classicman]

.

[HungLikeJesus]

This thread is begging to be cloned.

[tw]

"Our only solar storm warning satellite on its last legs" from MSNBC News:

Until the sun's free-flying and highly energetic outbursts, known as coronal mass ejections, hit the ACE spacecraft, forecasters don't know the orientation of their embedded magnetic fields. Depending on the polarity, or alignment, Earth's magnetic shield will either peel away, giving the highly charged particles more freedom to disturb electrically sensitive equipment and communications, or rebuff the particles, such as what happened during this week's outburst.

Stationed about 1 million miles from Earth, ACE provides early warning of what's headed toward Earth. NOAA says more than 22,000 utility operators, airlines, satellite owners, GPS users and others are signed up to receive space weather alerts and millions more get the information on NOAA's website. ...

Another satellite with space weather sensors was slated to be launched in 2003 by the ill-fated shuttle Columbia crew, but the spacecraft, known as Triana, was nixed by the Bush administration because of its backing by former vice president and Democratic presidential nominee Al Gore. (Informally, Triana was sometimes referred to as GoreSat.) ...

"There were no technical reasons why it couldn't go. We were getting ready to send it the Cape (Kennedy Space Center) for launch and we got an order that the mission was not going to go," project scientist Adam Szabo, with NASA's Heliospheric Physics Laboratory at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, told Discovery News. ...

Launch is targeted for June 2014. The sun's 11-year solar cycle is expected to peak in May 2013. Heightened solar activity, which is ramping up this year, will continue for about the next six years.

[wolf]

Yes, I think that there should be devices looking at such things, scientific inquiry and all that, but really, what's the purpose of a warning system for something we can't do anything about. It's not like you can head for the Storm Cellar, like when the tornado is coming.

[infinite monkey]

Yeah, but you can duck and cover!

[tw]

Originally Posted by wolf

what's the purpose of a warning system for something we can't do anything about. It's not like you can head for the Storm Cellar, like when the tornado is coming.

AT&T once took that attitude. Spending money subscribing for such warnings only decreased profits. AT&T did not take the precautions necessary to avert satellite damage. As a result, two of their communication satellites were destroyed. Not just one - two failed simultaneously. These carried critical data networks for credit cards, the PBS network, and numerous other channels.

Electric grids are also subscribers to this critically important data so that the grid can be configured to avert damage or blackouts.

ISS gets reconfigured so that a destructive CME does not do internal damage. Even the crew retreats to a more heavily shielded part of the station.

The Mars Science Laboratory current in transient needs it. Oppurtunity on Mars needs it since Mars does not have a protective magnetic field.

A list of organizations that need this data is long. But that is science. A president (who was an MBA) was more concerned with his political agenda. Environmental sciences are contrary to their politics. Extremists have contempt for science (global warming, stem cells, space exploration, Quantum physics, etc). They canceled many satellites necessary to learn science and to warn of specific threats.

There was no political glory in launching that satellite or learning about environmental sciences that would only contradict their political agenda. Then we will blame it on a shortage of power plants in CA, a mythical obsolete power grid, or it was only an accident.

[tw]

The national electric grid typically plans for events a full day in advance. Since power plants can take a full day or longer to power cycle. And since a blackout (power loss) can take days to restore. Unfortunately, solar storms provide little warning.

Triana (now called Deep Space Climate Observatory or DSCOVR) will be launched to the L1 Lagrange point. A gravitational well between the earth and sun. Where sun observations will not be obstructed by the moon or earth. At best, this can only provide a 30 - 45 minute warning. At least that is something.

However polarity of a CMS ejection would be unknown. A northern polarity can be destructive. A southern polarity is made irrelevant by the earth's magnetic field. Some power grids and communication operators might cause o a day's interruption for an event that was irrelevant. In part because so little warning is available.

A solar event in the 1850s is feared. Some telegraph operators were even burned by EMF transients on long telegraph wires. What would another storm of that size do to a nation more dependent than on a telegraph?

List of operators for this launch include a SpaceX rocket, paid for by the Air Force, launched by NASA, and then turned over to NOAA to become part of our weather forecasts.

However, DSCOVR provides no new capabilities. It only replaces ACE which is now 15 years old. And like so many essential satellites (ie SOHO), otherwise has no replacement due to so much science stifled in the first decade of the 21st Century.

[DanaC]

I saw a really interesting interview a year or so ago with a woman who ws working in the solar storm detection field. Fascinating stuff. Scary too. As you point out, Tdub, the extent to which we are connected now compared to the 1850s opens up some dangerous possibilities.