SpaceWeather reports:
One of the biggest sunspots in years has just rotated over the sun’s northeastern limb. AR3112 has a mixed-polarity magnetic field that harbors energy for strong X-class solar flares. The appearance of this dangerous sunspot could herald two weeks of high solar activity as it transits the Earth-facing side of the sun.
Earth-orbiting satellites have just detected an X1-class solar flare (Oct. 2nd @ 2025 UT). Ironically, it did not come from big dangerous sunspot AR3112, described below, but rather from AR3110, a smaller and apparently less threatening active region. The flare (image) produced a shortwave radio blackout over the Pacific Ocean and parts of North America (blackout map), and it may have hurled a CME into space. Stay tuned for updates. Solar flare alerts: SMS Text
A BIG DANGEROUS SUNSPOT: One of the biggest sunspots in years has just rotated over the sun’s northeastern limb. Introducing, AR3112:
AR3112 has more than a dozen dark cores scattered across 130,000 km of solar terrain, making it an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. Don’t have a solar filter? Use the projection method, instead.
The image above is a magnetic map of the sun’s surface with a white light photo of AR3112 inset. It shows what makes this sunspot group so dangerous. Positive and negative magnetic polarities are bumping together–an explosive mixture that could produce an X-class solar flare.The emergence of AR3112 already fully formed and unstable could herald two weeks of high solar activity as the sunspot group transits the solar disk, facing Earth the whole time.
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Are we actually seeing more solar flares occurring in recent years or, like storms, are the detection methods improving so we’re picking up a lot more?
Sun is now more active
They’re caused by CO2 on Earth.
It’s systemic racism in action!
Will these Sun flares cause complexion changes in White Supremacists?
These solar flares are caused by global warming !!
Don’t be silly. The global warming is obviously attracting them to earth like a magnet!
They’re being drawn by the evil spirits. The ones that reside in Washington DC
Nah, solar flares are a social construct. 😆
We need a Carington Event for folks to figure out that, the more Complex the Grids are, with all the Bir Choppers, the harder it will be to restart.
Pray that there will be no loss of life when it happens.
Hmm, unless there’s a very good early warning system in place, how many aircraft are likely to be flying when it arrives? Or high speed trains?
I think I will wear a tin-foil conical hat to the supermarket tomorrow.
Suit of armor, Ron. Faraday cage. Why do you think there were no problems back in Medieval times?
Fewer computers? Apart from the Stonehenge mainframe, of course!
And don’t forget your facemask Ron, lest you breath in those viruses from the CME’s. On second thought you should probably shelter in place for the next 2 weeks to flatten the curve at the supermarket. I don’t think amazon has run short of TP yet. Get you order in now. Oh and see you in a couple years.
If this flare does cause some sort of disruption on Earth, it’s a safe bet the climate alarmists will somehow try to attribute it to increased carbon emissions here. The problem is that there are enough dupes to believe them, but not enough to make major operating and lifestyle changes that will have any effect one way or another because poll after poll keeps revealing that fighting the “climate crisis” is a low priority on this planet.
Whilst it is absolutely true that the “climate crisis” is low priority for most people, that is also a danger.
The virtue signalling GangGreen mob backed by the HiTech Billionaires and gormless Politicians will keep on taking big bites out of Western Society and Culture whilst “normal” folk are distracted by what’s on the telly.
By the time they wake up it will likely be too late.
Trump’s fault.
No, I think this one is on DeSantis who, according to The View, is also responsible for Hurricane Ian.
Should a big’un actually get hurled at Earth, I suppose we have a much of a chance of stopping it as we do the next glaciation.
Other than some individuals who have hardened what electrical goodies they thought they would be needing, I’m not aware of any large-scale efforts to protect much of anything.
I guess some military kit and government comms have been hardened, but not a lot else.
Certainly not our power grid. I wonder why. We’ve been hearing about the potential impacts of another Carrigton event since forever but absolutely no one in a position to DO anything has actually taken the danger seriously.
I think when one is on it’s way, turning off the main breaker in your dwelling will save your your electric devices.
There has been a big push in the telecom industry to improve bonding and grounding of copper assets and this should sufficiently harden against EMP and solar weather (fiber optic lines are obviously unaffected). I have heard that sufficient hardening of the power grid would cost the USA approximately 2-5 Billion USD (chump change, really).
These figures are years old, I do not know what Bidenflation has done to those numbers, and I have no idea if there has been any action in that regard.
2-5 Billion is just a few days in Ukraine.
fjb.
What has changed a lot since the Carrington event, and even since the major hit back in the 90’s that affected Canada, is the ability to predict if/when a CME will hit earth. For the electrical grid, we know that in recent history, a CME can cause problems. But if there is a very big one coming, it may be viable for the power companies to simply disconnect everywhere the power grid has a disconnect for the time of vulnerability. And individuals can unplug everything in their homes.
Concerning cars. I’ve read conflicting information on the internet. I have doubts it will be an issue, since a car, is in essence, a Faraday cage itself. But, I have not seen any engineering studies to verify this. Are you aware of any such studies?
Lovely – we’ve been dealing with man-made disasters for several years and now the sun has decided to get into the act.
According to our Global-warm-monger friends, it is because we have angered the gods. Really, their suppositions are just modernized superstition.
New Sunspot may Hurl Dangerous Solar Flare at Earth.Or it may not.
Back to being doomed. If we ever weren’t.
No one gets out of here alive.
It has already arrived! I live alone and My radio got switched on at 0500 U.K. time this morning. Must be this if not Aliens. Fortunately, with all this CO2 about, I was fast asleep; but soon awake.😤🤔🤔
“Anything can happen, but it usually doesn’t”- Robert Benchley.
I’m going to remember that one.
I’m confident someone will declare any impact on our planet the fault of climate change.
The spot is not located in front of the Earth. Spots are more dangerous to Earth the closer they are to the solar equator.
http://wso.stanford.edu/gifs/Dipall.gif
This is what solar activity looks like now.
If it hits NYC during the work week, look for more babies! In 9 months. Have they hardened the electrical grid enough to prevent such occurrences?
There are many sunspecks in that sunspot group. Are they counting every sunspeck officially?
What is this that potentially hurls at Earth?
(With potentially impactful consequences to our electronic age.)
It is a tongue of electromagnetic plasma, electrons & ions.
Another way to think of this is by the time & distance between the Sun & Earth it is like a ribbon, yet again it is important to remember this phenomenon consists of plasma, free electrons & free ions (usually a free single proton, a hydrogen ion) surrounded by a magnetic field which tends to constrict the plasma, but also an electric field between the electrons & ions.
Keeping this concept in mind will help in understanding the physical mechanics of the Sun.
And help us understand the physical relationship between the Sun & the Earth.
Per the article:
“The image above is a magnetic map of the sun’s surface with a white light photo of AR3112 inset. It shows what makes this sunspot group so dangerous. Positive and negative magnetic polarities are bumping together–an explosive mixture “
It’s those “Positive” and “negative” magnetic polarities…
Why?
My hypothesis is that you have the potential for dramatic, electric, cancelling out.
A large mass of a negative region, (my hypothesis) consisting of electrons & a large mass of a positive region, consisting of ions…
Violently cancels, briefly causing a neutral region.
The physical action & reaction from electrons & ions “smashing” (becoming neutral atoms, however briefly) together matches the electromagnetic force between single electrons & ions.
The attractive force between electrons & ions is many orders of magnitude stronger than the attractive force of gravity.
When the masses of this process are truly massive like on the Sun…
Well, the results are spectacular… truly electric…
I suspect that electrical problems cause by a solar flair WILL properly be associated with the idea of Anthropogenic Global Warming [AGW]. Note that I said “Idea”. Government actions to fight their belief in AGW have made the power grid more loaded, so perhaps more prone to damage.
Also, if we loose power, there may be more impact, due to electric vehicles not being able to recharge. The Biden Administration had mandated that the federal government depend solely upon electric vehicles. And a small generator that could run local postal equipment is not going to be able to handle charging the vehicles also, even if the vehicles could run all day with one charge. Though, I think we (except for California) wouldn’t see much impact nationwide, because so few vehicles are electric.
“lose” please.
That is one word that I never could really convince myself that it should be spelled “lose”. The “oo” has the vowel sound we want, but a single “o” in this context would often be pronounced as in “lock”.
I wonder if some text book in history accidentally omitted an o, and since then the text books have been faithfully copying the same incorrect information.
Loose… the horse is on the loose…
Scare tactics are on the loose across the American landscape.
Loose power is power with rolling brownouts
Even ICE vehicles have enough electronic parts and electrical systems to be knocked out. I don’t think it’ll really matter too much if your car is totally electric or just partially, if the flare is that powerful, neither will work.
IPCC climate model elves project the solar flare will enter the earth’s atmosphere on the 11th of October and will destroy all parts of Ukraine not occupied by putin. …. unless Ukraine receives another $35billion in aid.
All this talk about solar flares… Looking at the sun today is nothing like looking at the sun of my youth. The sun of my youth would have sun spots covering massive portions of the surface. Somehow, all those massive sun spots never ended up with a Carrington event. But, now, decades later, with a near clean screen sun, it seems that every major, which historically are actually tiny, sunspot is a risk for a terrible solar flare.
Educate yourself. This is a real topic. Based on studies using Keppler satellite data measuring CMEs from similar G class stars, CMEs large enough to cause loss of grid is an approximately 1% per year event. Info on how the event can cause loss of Grid is in the attached web link. Also go to the referenced report from the last page of the presentation.
This topic is complex enough that it will require more than just a few minutes to understand. Drive by commenters do not add to the conversation. Electric Utilities, and the government are aware of the subject, and are continuing to develop ways to mitigate impact. Similar, more local grid impacts can be caused intentionally by the magnetic pulse from a nuclear weapon detonated at altitude.
It is appropriate to be knowledgeable of space weather.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/u33/finalBoulderPresentation042611%20%281%29.pdf
Absolutely! Once the needed satellites go down, people will take it seriously.