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For the second time in less than a week, energetic solar protons are raining down on Earth's upper atmosphere. Forecasters call this a "solar radiation storm." Today's storm (near category S2) is rich in "hard protons" wiith energies greater than 50 MeV. It is causing a shortwave radio blackout inside the Arctic Circle and speckling the cameras of some Earth-orbiting satellites. The plot above shows storm data recorded by NOAA's GOES-18 satellite in Earth orbit. Sensors on the satellite are counting energetic protons as they pass by en route to Earth. Triggered by an explosion near the sun's southwestern limb (inset), this storm could last for another 24 hours.
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Europeans are still trying to wrap their minds around what happened after sunset on April 23, 2023. Everyone knew that a CME was coming; photographers were already outside waiting for auroras. But when the auroras appeared, they were very strange."I had never seen anything quite like it," says Heiko Ulbricht of Saxony, Germany. "The auroras began to tear themselves apart, pulsating as they formed individual blobs that floated high in the sky." "It literally took my breath away," he says. "My pulse was still racing hours later!" The same blobs were sighted in France and Poland, and in Denmark they were caught flashing like a disco strobe light. Ordinary auroras don't act like this. Indeed, "these were not ordinary auroras," confirms space physicist Toshi Nishimura of Boston University. "They are called 'proton auroras,' and they come from Earth's ring current system." Most people don't realize that Earth has rings. Unlike Saturn's rings, which are vast disks of glittering ice, Earth's rings are invisible to the naked eye. They are made of electricity--a donut-shaped circuit carrying millions of amps around our planet. The ring current skims the orbits of geosynchronous satellites and plays a huge role in determining the severity of geomagnetic storms. Sometimes during strong geomagnetic storms, protons rain down from the ring system, causing a secondary shower of electrons, which strike the atmosphere and make auroras. Earth-orbiting satellites have actually seen these protons on their way down. Ordinary auroras, on the other hand, are caused by particles from more distant parts of Earth's magnetosphere and have nothing to do with Earth's ring current.Mystery solved? Not entirely. "We still don't know why proton auroras seem to tear themselves apart in such a dramatic way," says Nishimura. "This is a question for future research."
"It was very exciting to watch," says Ulbricht. "I definitely want to see them again." Good, because they'll be back. Solar Cycle 25 ramping up to a potentially-strong Solar Maximum next year. Future storms will surely knock more protons loose from the ring current system. Here's what to look for: (1) Proton auroras tend to appear around sunset. Why? Electric fields in Earth's magnetosphere push the protons toward the dusk not dawn side of our planet. (2) Proton auroras love to pulse--a sign of plasma wave activity in Earth's ring current. (3) Proton auroras are sometimes accompanied by deep red arcs of light (SARs), the glow of heat leaking from the ring current system. These red arcs were also seen on April 23rd. Solar Max is coming. Let the proton rain begin! https://spaceweather.com/ GEOMAGNETIC STORM PREDICTED: NOAA forecasters say there is a 75% chance of moderately strong (G2-class) geomagnetic storms on Sept. 13th. That's when a CME hurled into space by a powerful X8-class solar flare on 10 September will likely deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field. The impact of the CME could be enhanced by a fast-moving solar wind stream, expected to arrive at about the same time. If the G2-storm materializes, auroras in the USA could appear as low as New York to Wisconsin to Washington state. SOLAR RADIATION STORM AND GROUND LEVEL EVENT: On Sept. 10th, departing sunspot AR2673 erupted, producing a powerful X8-class solar flare. The explosion propelled a CME into space and accelerated a swarm of energetic protons toward Earth. Both are visible in this coronagraph movie from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO): (go to http://spaceweather.com/ to watch animation) The many specks in this movie are not stars--they are solar protons striking SOHO's digital camera. Almost two days later these protons are still streaming past our planet, causing a moderately strong (S2-class) solar radiation storm. The latest data from SOHO show an ongoing blizzard of digital "snow" in coronagraph images: What made this flare so 'radioactive'? It has to do with the location of AR2673 at the time of the explosion. The sun's western limb is magnetically well-connected to Earth. Look at this diagram. Magnetic fields spiraling back from the blast site led directly to our planet, funneling these energetic protons Earthward. Normally, solar radiation storms are held at bay by our planet's magnetic field and upper atmosphere. On Sept.10th, however, there was a "ground level event" (GLE). Neutron monitors in the Arctic, Antarctic, and several other high latitude locations detected a surge of particles reaching all the way down to Earth's surface: The Bartol Research Institute's South Pole Neutron Monitor detected a GLE on Sept. 10th. "In historical terms, this was a relatively small ground level event-- only about one thousandth as strong as the event of 23 Feb 1956, which is the largest measured," says Clive Dyer, a Visiting Professor at the University of Surrey Space Centre.
However, that does not mean the Sept.10th GLE was negligible. Dyer says that "passengers flying on high-latitude routes at 40,000 feet could have absorbed an extra 10 microSieverts of radiation. During the first hour of the GLE, the dose rate inside the aircraft during such a flight would have approximately doubled." He also notes that the GLE could have caused minor upsets of onboard electronics and avionics, although nothing on the scale of the epic 1956 GLE, "which would be very challenging to modern systems." "Since measurements began around 1942 there have now been 73 events detected by ground level radiation monitors," Dyer adds. "The Sept.10, 2017, event is far from the strongest, but it is of special interest because it demonstrates the need for continual vigilance even during Solar Minimum." www.spaceweather.com A surprisingly strong G3-class geomagnetic storm erupted on Aug. 15th when a CME hit Earth's magnetic field. Two nights later, as the storm was subsiding, midnight sky watchers in North America witnessed a rare and beautiful form of aurora--a "proton arc." Paul Zizka photographed the phenomenon on Aug. 17th from Banff, Alberta (see below, left). "It was incredible," says Zizka. "The whitish pillar remained nearly stationary for over 30 minutes--enough time for a self-portrait." In Val Marie, Saskatchewan, photographer Sherri Grant saw a purple proton arc cutting across the Milky Way. And in Oroville, Washington, at the Table Mountain Star Party, campers witnessed at least two more arcs (see below, centre and right). Ordinary auroras are caused by electrons, which rain down on Earth's atmosphere from above. Atoms of oxygen and nitrogen, excited by the pitter-patter of electrons, form dynamic curtains of light. Protons have a different effect. For reasons not fully understood, protons normally trapped in our planet's ring current sometimes rain down on Earth's atmosphere during geomagnetic storms. En route, they excite a type of plasma wave called "EMIC"--short for electromagnetic ion cyclotron waves. The result is not a curtain, but rather a tight arc of light as shown above.
Many of the photographers who witnessed proton arcs on Aug. 17th have been observing auroras for years, yet they had never seen this phenomenon before. Geomagnetic storms still have the capacity to surprise! www.spaceweather.com RADIATION STORM: A minor solar proton storm is underway around Earth. Registering "S1" on NOAA storm scales, the storm is not yet intense enough to have a significant effect on satellites or air travelers. It is, however, trending upward, so the situation could change. M-CLASS SOLAR FLARE: Sunspot AR1778 produced an impulsive M2-class solar flare on June 23rd at 20:56 UT. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash: [go to http://spaceweather.com/ to watch brief video of flash]
The eruption flung material away from the blast site, but the debris does not appear to be heading toward Earth. Except for the effects of the UV flash, which created a short-lived wave of ionization in Earth's upper atmosphere, this flare was not geo-effective.
More flares could be in the offing. In addition to AR1778, sunspots AR1775 and AR1776 have 'beta-gamma' magnetic fields that harbor energy for significant eruptions. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of M-flares and a 5% chance of X-flares on June 24th. www.spaceweather.com Published on 8 Jun 2013
How to Watch the Sun http://youtu.be/ld5ecZuHECA Original music by Nemes1s : http://www.suspicious0bservers.org/shop/ [Get NEMES1S Music!] http://www.soundclick.com/nemes1s Animations and Visual Effects by Xaviar Thunders [Check him out on YouTube] TODAY's New LINKS: San Onofre: http://phys.org/news/2013-06-glitch-h... Amazon Fire: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/feat... NLCs: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/... China Sandstorm: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/pho... Radio Anomaly: http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproo... US TEC: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ustec/images... US Windmap http://hint.fm/wind/ US Severe Weather: http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-c... UK/EU MET Office: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/e... NOAA: http://www.weather.gov/forecastmaps EU Weather Alerts: http://www.meteoalarm.eu US Weather Warnings: http://www.weather.gov India: http://202.54.31.51/nowcast/ http://www.imd.gov.in/section/nhac/dy... http://www.imd.gov.in/section/satmet/... The REAL Climate Changer: http://youtu.be/_yy3YJBOw_o Ice Age Soon? http://youtu.be/UuYTcnN7TQk An Unlikely but Relevant Risk - The Solar Killshot: http://youtu.be/X0KJ_dxp170 SUBSIDING RADIATION STORM: A solar radiation storm in progress around Earth is slowly subsiding. It currently ranks S2 (moderate) on NOAA storm scales, which means that satellites in Earth orbit could experience "single event upsets" in their electronic systems. The radiation storm is also a source of noise in spacecraft cameras, giving their images a snowy appearance (see below). M5-CLASS EXPLOSION: The ongoing radiation storm got started on May 22nd when the magnetic canopy of sunspot AR1745 exploded. The blast produced an M5-class solar flare and hurled a magnificent CME over the sun's western limb: [go to http://spaceweather.com/images2013/22may13/m5_cme_anim.gif to watch animation] Credit: the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) The movie of the CME is very "snowy." That is caused by high-energy solar protons striking the CCD camera in SOHO's coronagraph. Each strike produces a brief snow-like speckle in the image. This hailstorm of solar protons is what forecasters mean by "radiation storm."
Although the explosion was not squarely Earth-directed, the CME will likely be geoeffective. The expanding cloud appears set to deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on May 24th around 1200 UT. According to NOAA forecast models, the impact will more than double the solar wind plasma density around Earth and boost the solar wind speed to ~600 km/s. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras. www.spaceweather.com Published on 23 May 2013
How to Watch the Sun - http://youtu.be/ld5ecZuHECA Original music by Nemes1s - http://www.soundclick.com/nemes1s Animations and Visual Effects by Xaviar Thunders [Check him out on YouTube] TODAY's New LINKS: Galaxy Merger: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videog... Pavlof Volcano: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD... Central Pacific Hurricane Season: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2... LandSAT: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lan... [Bonus Article - Not in video, but still cool] Radio Anomaly: http://iridl.ldeo.columbia.edu/maproo... US TEC: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ustec/images... US Windmap http://hint.fm/wind/ US Severe Weather: http://www.weather.com/news/tornado-c... UK/EU MET Office: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/e... NOAA: http://www.weather.gov/forecastmaps EU Weather Alerts: http://www.meteoalarm.eu US Weather Warnings: http://www.weather.gov India: http://202.54.31.51/nowcast/ http://www.imd.gov.in/section/nhac/dy... http://www.imd.gov.in/section/satmet/... The REAL Climate Changer: http://youtu.be/_yy3YJBOw_o Ice Age Soon? http://youtu.be/UuYTcnN7TQk An Unlikely but Relevant Risk - The Solar Killshot: http://youtu.be/X0KJ_dxp170 Suspicious0bservers·772 videos Published on May 14, 2013 OFFICIAL TRAILER - How to Watch the Sun http://youtu.be/JzG9VWb9ij0 Coming Soon - MAY 18, 2013 Logo by Xaviar Thunders Original music by Nemes1s The REAL Climate Changer: http://youtu.be/_yy3YJBOw_o Ice Age Soon? http://youtu.be/UuYTcnN7TQk An Unlikely but Relevant Risk - The Solar Killshot: http://youtu.be/X0KJ_dxp170 (Many more links to various associated sites listed on Suspicious Observers YouTube site (link shown beneath the video)
April 15, 2013: In science fiction, finding antimatter on board your spaceship is not good news. Usually, it means you're moments away from an explosion. In real life, though, finding antimatter could lead to a Nobel Prize. On April 3rd, researchers led by Nobel Laureate Samuel Ting of MIT announced that the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, a particle detector operating onboard the International Space Station since 2011, has counted more than 400,000 positrons, the antimatter equivalent of electrons. There’s no danger of an explosion, but the discovery is sending shock waves through the scientific community. "These data show the existence of a new physical phenomenon," wrote Ting and colleagues in an article published in the Physical Review Letters. "It could be a sign of dark matter."
The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (“AMS” for short) was delivered to the ISS by the space shuttle Endeavour on its final flight in May 2011. In its first 18 months of operations, from May 19, 2011 to December 10, 2012, the AMS analyzed 25 billion cosmic ray events. Of these, an unprecedented number were unambiguously identified as positrons. Cosmic rays are subatomic particles such as protons and helium nuclei accelerated to near-light speed by supernova explosions and other violent events in the cosmos. Researchers have long known that cosmic rays contain a sprinkling of antimatter. Italy's PAMELA satellite detected high-energy positrons in 2009, and NASA's Fermi gamma-ray observatory confirmed the find two years later. But where do the positrons come from? The Universe is almost completely devoid of antimatter, so the positron fraction of cosmic ray electrons--as much as 10%--is a little surprising. One idea is dark matter. Astronomers know that the vast majority of the material Universe is actually made of dark matter rather than ordinary matter. They just don't know what dark matter is. It exerts gravity, but emits no light, which makes it devilishly difficult to study. Read more at: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/14apr_ams/ MINOR RADIATION STORM: Energetic solar protons are flying past Earth today. The particles were accelerated in our direction by the M6-class flare of April 11th (see below). They can be seen hitting and speckling the detector of the SOHO spacecraft in this movie of the explosion (labeled image). NOAA ranks the ongoing radiation storm as S1, which is considered a minor event. STRONG SOLAR FLARE: The magnetic field of sunspot AR1719 erupted on April 11th at 0716 UT, producing an M6-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the explosion's extreme ultraviolet flash: Coronagraph images from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) show a CME emerging from the blast site. The expanding cloud should hit Earth's magnetic field during the early hours of April 13th, possibly sparking geomagnetic storms and auroras. Go to: www.spaceweather.com to play a movie of the CME recorded by (SOHO): The speckles near the end of the movie are caused by energetic solar protons hitting the coronagraph's CCD detector; the particles were accelerated in the direction of the spacecraft by the flare. Note that although the CME appears to hit Mars and Venus, there is no actual physical contact. The cloud is merely passing in front of the two planets. Stay tuned for updates about this significant explosion. www.spaceweather.com
MARTIAN MARATHON: More than 8 years after landing on the Red Planet, Mars rover Opportunity is still running. Indeed, mission planners say the tireless robot is poised to complete a full marathon--the first ever long-distance race on an alien planet. [full story] [video]. ALMOST X-FLARE: Sunspot complex AR1520-1521 erupted again on July 19th, this time producing an M7-class solar flare that almost crossed the threshold into X-territory. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash: (go to www.spaceweather.com). The explosion produced a bright coronal mass ejection. The cloud should miss Earth, but although the explosion occurred on the other side of the sun's western limb, our planet could feel some effects. The blast site is magnetically connected to Earth by backward-spiralling lines of magnetic force. Protons accelerated by the flare are being guided to us by those lines of magnetism, and a mild radiation storm is underway. www.spaceweather.com
13/07/2012 REVISED FORECAST: The CME launched toward Earth by yesterday's X-flare is moving faster than originally thought. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab have revised their forecast accordingly, advancing the cloud's expected arrival time to 09:17 UT (5:17 am EDT) on Saturday, July 14th. Weekend auroras are likely. Big sunspot AR1520 unleashed an X1.4-class solar flare on July 12th at 1653 UT. Because this sunspot is directly facing Earth, everything about the blast was geoeffective. For one thing, it hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward our planet. According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the CME will hit Earth on July 14th around 10:20 UT (+/- 7 hours) and could spark strong geomagnetic storms. Sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend. The explosion also strobed Earth with a pulse of extreme UV radiation, shown here in an image captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory: The UV pulse partially ionized Earth's upper atmosphere, disturbing the normal propagation of radio signals around the planet. Monitoring stations in Norway and Ireland recorded the sudden ionospheric disturbance.
Finally, solar protons accelerated by the blast are swarming around Earth. The radiation storm, in progress, ranks "S1" on NOAA space weather scales, which means it poses no serious threat to satellites or astronauts. This could change if the storm continues to intensify. Stay tuned. www.spaceweather.com For days, giant sunspot AR1515 has looked capable of producing a really strong explosion. On July 6th it finally did. Yesterday, the sunspot's magnetic canopy erupted, producing a brief but potent X1.1-class solar flare. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the extreme ultraviolet flash: [go to: www.spaceweather.com] The explosion hurled a CME into space. According to this movie from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, the cloud appears to be heading south and away from Earth. However, we cannot yet rule out a glancing blow to our planet on July 8th or 9th. Stay tuned for further analysis. Look at the CME movie one more time. The speckles near the end are caused by energetic protons accelerated by the flare. Guided toward Earth by solar magnetic fields, the protons are peppering Earth-orbiting satellites, causing "snow" in imaging systems and posing a slim threat for single-event upsets (computer glitches). CERN physicists announce they are 99% certain they have found elusive Higgs boson particle Physicists say they have discovered a new particle that is consistent with the Higgs boson, a long-sought particle crucial to scientists’ current understanding of how the universe is built, although they will need additional data to pin it down with near absolute certainty. Joe Incandela, leader of one of the teams, told scientists at the European Center for Nuclear Research, or CERN, that the new particle was definitely a boson and the heaviest boson ever found. “The implications are very significant and it is precisely for this reason that we must be extremely diligent in all of our studies and cross-checks.” he said in a statement. The new particle found at CERN is in the mass range of 125-126 GeV, or gigaelectronvolts, which means its mass is 125-126 times greater than the mass of a proton. CERN said their data had pinned down the mass of the new particle with an extremely high level of statistical certainty. "It’s hard not to get excited by these results.” said CERN Research Director Sergio. However, the researchers cautioned that the current finding was still preliminary and they expect more data from additional experiments in coming months. One crucial detail would be for them to pin down specific properties that the Higgs boson is supposed to have. For example, the theory predicts it will have a spin of zero. –WSJ Uploaded by fermilab on 7 Jul 2011 Fermilab scientist Don Lincoln describes the nature of the Higgs boson. Several large experimental groups are hot on the trail of this elusive subatomic particle which is thought to explain the origins of particle mass. [It is very interesting to watch scientists attempting to discover smaller and smaller particles, including the so-called 'God particle', but they will never be able to reach the 'infinitely small', to which there is no end (infinity includes the infinitely small as well as the infinitely large). Perhaps a better emphasis would be on the contemplation of who or what actually CREATES the Field within which the physical creation exists .... However, it does seem that Science and Spirituality are slowly drawing closer to each other. Messenger Spirit]
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