Earth dodges solar storm.

Interesting articles BTDT, though it looks like the Earth is not going to have a great deal of communication problems, this time at least. Pole shifts happen continuously, but a pole flip, is something else altogether.

Its always best to be prepared, I have wind up torches and a wind up radio, better than storing batteries, which can deteriorate.

spud


http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/18/3142136.htm



Earth dodges solar storm

Updated 1 hour 4 minutes ago
Solar flare

NASA says the Earth had dodged the worst effects of the solar flare (AFP/NASA)


A wave of charged plasma particles from a huge solar eruption has glanced off the Earth's northern pole, lighting up auroras and disrupting some radio communications, a NASA scientist said.

But the Earth appears to have escaped a widespread geomagnetic storm, with the effects confined to the northern latitudes, possibly reaching down into Norway and Canada.

"There can be sporadic outages based on particular small-scale events," said the project scientist at NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory at Goddard Space Flight Centre, Dean Persnell.

Mr Persnell says the official forecast is "for generally quiet conditions today, perhaps some minor storming tomorrow, but nothing extraordinary."

The event began on Tuesday with a spectacular solar eruption in a sunspot the size of Jupiter that produced a Class X flash - the most powerful of all solar events.

The eruption blasted a torrent of charged plasma particles, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), towards Earth at about 900 kilometres per second, the observatory reported.

A direct hit from a CME could trigger a huge geomagnetic storm as incoming particles bounce off the Earth's geomagnetic field, blacking out radio communications, interfering with GPS navigational systems, in theory even causing power outages.

The China Meteorological Administration reported the solar flare caused "sudden ionospheric disturbances" in the atmosphere above China and jammed short-wave radio communications in the southern part of the country.

Anticipating the worst, the US National Weather Service's Space Weather Prediction Service warned it was "the calm before the storm."

"Three CMEs are enroute, all a part of the Radio Blackout events on February 13, 14, and 15. The last of the three seems to be the fastest and may catch both of the forerunners about mid to late ... February 17."

But Mr Persnell said the spiralling beam of solar particles from Tuesday's eruption was passing behind the Earth without making a direct hit.

"In this case, it appears it will curve around and not hit us," he said.

He said satellite data "shows that the CME is quieting down and so there is not a whole lot left to it. So it's moved well behind us by now."

More flares to come

But he said solar activity is on the upswing, and more CMEs will follow.

"We are seeing more and more sunspots as what we call solar cycle 24 is turning on," he said. "At the peak we might see several of these CMEs a day coming off the sun."

"But they have only a 5 to 10 per cent chance of hitting us. We have to be in exactly the right place for that piece of spiral to come hit us. We'll see many more coming off the sun than we have hitting us here on Earth."

The British Geological Survey (BGS) said, meanwhile, that the solar storm would result in spectacular Northern Lights displays starting on Thursday.

One CME reached Earth on February 14, "sparking Valentine's Day displays of the Northern Lights (aurora borealis) further south than usual."

The office published geomagnetic records dating back to the Victorian era which it hopes will help in planning for future storms.

"Life increasingly depends on technologies that didn't exist when the magnetic recordings began," said BGS head of geomagnetism, Alan Thomson.

"Studying the records will tell us what we have to plan and prepare for to make sure systems can resist solar storms."

- AFP Tweet