Explosion on the Sun
- Thread starter svetz
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BaronVerde
In solar orbit
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Nice.
Remind me to properly ground my installation.
en.wikipedia.org
btw. but unrelated, I think some of the commercially available panel mountings are too puny. Read in a (German) pamphlete on lightning protection that, if there is no separate protection system (which there usually isn't because expensive and not obligatory on private property in most parts), one should at least use 5cm(2") thick aluminium profiles and ground them well.
Remind me to properly ground my installation.
Carrington Event - Wikipedia
btw. but unrelated, I think some of the commercially available panel mountings are too puny. Read in a (German) pamphlete on lightning protection that, if there is no separate protection system (which there usually isn't because expensive and not obligatory on private property in most parts), one should at least use 5cm(2") thick aluminium profiles and ground them well.
WYtreasure
It's not happy hour, I'm just like this.
Damn
That woulda hurt if we were over there. Could have easily seen the aurora borealis from my place in Wyoming, maybe even your place in Florida, if we could still see anything.
Compliments of NWS: ... Displays this far south can occur when a large coronal mass ejection from the Sun creates a huge geomagnetic storm in the Earth's outer atmosphere. This occurred on the night of November 5th and 6th, 2001 where amazing Aurora displays were seen as far south as Texas, Arizona and San Diego, CA
Nice find svetz
WYtreasure
It's not happy hour, I'm just like this.
So if I have this figured correctly, and the photo was taken from a position between the Earth & Sun, we will be getting the leftovers on March 4th or 5th. Might be a good time to disconnect everything and go spelunking 
svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
The "big one" already let loose, I'll be surprised if there's anything like it for a while. It doesn't sound like it's any particular risk now, although it'll be interesting to see if the sunspot is large enough to see with the naked eye. A lot of sunspots are way bigger than the Earth and you still can't see them without magnification.
It looks like it takes up about 30 degrees of latitude. The sun's diameter is ~865,370 miles, so 30 degrees is (30/360 x pi x 865,370) about 226,000 miles? So that's about 32 Earths or 3 Jupiters across? The sun is also 5x closer than Jupiter...so.. might be able to see it.
There was talk about a co-rotational field of solar wind (the faster wind overtakes the slower prior wind and they interact), but I don't really know what that means, doesn't sound like much though.
Most of the planets are on the other side of the sun currently, looks a bit lopsided:
It looks like it takes up about 30 degrees of latitude. The sun's diameter is ~865,370 miles, so 30 degrees is (30/360 x pi x 865,370) about 226,000 miles? So that's about 32 Earths or 3 Jupiters across? The sun is also 5x closer than Jupiter...so.. might be able to see it.
There was talk about a co-rotational field of solar wind (the faster wind overtakes the slower prior wind and they interact), but I don't really know what that means, doesn't sound like much though.
Most of the planets are on the other side of the sun currently, looks a bit lopsided:
WYtreasure
It's not happy hour, I'm just like this.
Those are mind boggling distances to me.
Everything past this point is approximate:
So the Moon, when at it's farthest from Earth is 250,000 miles away. The Sun is 850,000 miles across. That means you could stick 3 sets of Earth/Moon on the diameter of the sun and still have 100,000 miles left over.
Earth & Moon have been enlarged for clarity.
Where did you get the pics?
Everything past this point is approximate:
So the Moon, when at it's farthest from Earth is 250,000 miles away. The Sun is 850,000 miles across. That means you could stick 3 sets of Earth/Moon on the diameter of the sun and still have 100,000 miles left over.
Earth & Moon have been enlarged for clarity.Where did you get the pics?
MurphyGuy
It just needs a bigger hammer
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Sometimes numbers don't do a good job of providing comprehension and its not possible to display the scales we're dealing with on paper or a screen.
Here's some scale.
If you were to scale down (shrink) the Sun to the size of a regulation 9.5 inch basketball, the earth would be just a bit over 2 mm (0.087 inches) in diameter and be located 85 feet away.
Jupiter would be just under 1 inch in diameter and almost 450 feet away.
Pluto would be almost 3500 feet away
The next closest star system would be almost 4500 MILES away.
svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
Most are from spaceweather.com, the planet positions are from https://www.theplanetstoday.com/
The scale of some of the astral bodies:
On distance:
Last edited:
BaronVerde
In solar orbit
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That's why the SI was invented. Valid SI units are:
"the diameter of a human hair"
"the size of a football field"
"the size of [local state/county/water body depending on when and where]"
"the distance between the earth and the moon"
...
svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
The sun takes ~27 days to rotate, so in a week that's about a quarter turn... so sure enough found this:
But, at AIA 193 Å it looks like this...
More NASA near-real-time imagery here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/the-sun-now/index.html
But, at AIA 193 Å it looks like this...
More NASA near-real-time imagery here: https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sdo/the-sun-now/index.html
Hedges
I See Electromagnetic Fields!
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So if I have this figured correctly, and the photo was taken from a position between the Earth & Sun, we will be getting the leftovers on March 4th or 5th. Might be a good time to disconnect everything and go spelunking
Run for the Hills! Lock up your Electronics! There's a CME headed our way!
(Due Thursday 3/10/22 according to the news. Not supposed to be significant, mostly passing near the Earth. But I unplugged my instruments and printer, and switched off all AC and DC of my PV/battery system. I can do without production for a day, just use the grid. Not sure what time it is supposed to hit.)
| EarthSky
earthsky.org
WYtreasure
It's not happy hour, I'm just like this.
oOH My Someone's gotta say when it's gonna hit. I'm not turnin on the idiot box to find out when the world's gonna end.Run for the Hills! Lock up your Electronics! There's a CME headed our way!
(Due Thursday 3/10/22 according to the news. Not supposed to be significant, mostly passing near the Earth. But I unplugged my instruments and printer, and switched off all AC and DC of my PV/battery system. I can do without production for a day, just use the grid. Not sure what time it is supposed to hit.)
| EarthSky
MurphyGuy
It just needs a bigger hammer
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Its old news..
The sun exploding were the "good old days" when all we had to worry about was a CME...
The ante is in, the cards dealt, and a player has just raised our exploding sun with nuclear war.
If you thought 2021 was bad....
MurphyGuy
It just needs a bigger hammer
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None of them are anything to worry about until they come from an X class flare... and really, from what we figure, it needs to be a double tap.. two flares back to back. The first one clears the space for the second one to hit hard. That's what happened in the Carrington even anyhow.
Its not just the size of the flare, its the speed its traveling.
WYtreasure
It's not happy hour, I'm just like this.
A "CMA", a "C2", "SMS"??? I only know what ETA is because folks always wanted to know when we would get there.
The question is: DO I COVER MY HAT WITH REGULAR OR HEAVY DUTY ALUMINUM FOIL? ?
MurphyGuy
It just needs a bigger hammer
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Its not CMA it's CME (Coronal Mass Ejection).. The C2 is the size along with some other parameters.. Small CME's can pretty much be ignored.. Slightly larger CME's, lets call them medium, sometimes require power companies to brace for the impact. This is done by turning on or turning off different transmission paths depending on what the modeling is telling them.
Larger CME's require extreme measures and can knock out the power grid and put you in the dark. Back in 1859, the Earth got hit with a really big one and it set telephone poles on fire.. if it happened today, you probably wouldn't have grid power back until sometime around 2030.. if you lived that long.
I think SMS stands for a messaging system that texts you an alert to your phone.
Be careful, if the foil is too tight, it can cut off circulation to your brain and cause you to become a conspiracy theorist..
svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
WYtreasure
It's not happy hour, I'm just like this.
I plugged in all those little "solar battery maintainers" that I have. Will that be like a free emulsification?
MurphyGuy
It just needs a bigger hammer
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The Sun just spit out an X-1 solar flare from a group of hyper-active sunspots that are just rotating into view now.
An X-1 solar flare is a big one, but not a grid down event by any stretch. The CME it is likely to produce could possibly cause a few minor disruptions in poorly constructed areas if it was pointed right at us, maybe 3rd world countries or something, but unlikely to do anything in more modern places. Fortunately, the X-1 flare was not pointed in our direction. That might change in the next few days.
Of more concern is that these spots are now rotating into our view and if they continue to ramp up, we could see something big.
The secret to a CME causing a real problem here on earth is that it needs to be a double-tap CME. First, the sun needs to burp out a small CME that functions to clear the space between the Earth and Sun, once cleared, a larger CME can travel much faster and have a much larger impact on moving our magnetic field, and when that happens, you can kiss your electric grid goodbye.
An X-1 solar flare is a big one, but not a grid down event by any stretch. The CME it is likely to produce could possibly cause a few minor disruptions in poorly constructed areas if it was pointed right at us, maybe 3rd world countries or something, but unlikely to do anything in more modern places. Fortunately, the X-1 flare was not pointed in our direction. That might change in the next few days.
Of more concern is that these spots are now rotating into our view and if they continue to ramp up, we could see something big.
The secret to a CME causing a real problem here on earth is that it needs to be a double-tap CME. First, the sun needs to burp out a small CME that functions to clear the space between the Earth and Sun, once cleared, a larger CME can travel much faster and have a much larger impact on moving our magnetic field, and when that happens, you can kiss your electric grid goodbye.
svetz
Works in theory! Practice? That's something else
And now an X2... things are heating up!
From https://spaceweather.com/:
FYI: On the other side of the sun and no current danger other than the radio interference. We're definitely in excess of the curve, wonder if we're peaking early or peaking really large?
From https://spaceweather.com/:
FYI: On the other side of the sun and no current danger other than the radio interference. We're definitely in excess of the curve, wonder if we're peaking early or peaking really large?
WYtreasure
It's not happy hour, I'm just like this.
Should we be investing in 
sunscreen manufacturers for the coming years or just ? hats?
sunscreen manufacturers for the coming years or just ? hats?