On Friday, SpaceWeather alerted me to some solar activity that, while significant, wasn’t aimed at earth. I intended to write about it anyway, but it’s a waning moon, and I’m not betting as much done as I would like. The, this morning, I awoke to this missive: Solar activity increased sharply on Oct. 19th when…
Category: solar storms
Hold On To Your Hats!
This just in from SpaceWeather: This morning (Sept. 9th at 00:30 UT) the magnetic canopy of sunspot AR2158 erupted, producing a long-duration solar flare and a bright CME. The CME, which billowed away from the sun at nearly 1,000 km/s, has an Earth-directed component. A glancing blow is possible during the late hours of Sept….
Well, This Is Awkward…
I’m seeing a pattern. Machinery going haywire. Extreme behavior. People’s heads being loudly negative. But also… Flashes of insight. Drastic life changes. It seems easier than usual to change long-programmed behaviors. And… A lot of buzzy energy. Being grounded seems challenging. People tending towards hypomanic (think overly productive with a chance of overspending, rather than…
A Short Note on the Current Energies
I have to run off and teach, but I did want to make a note of the energy before I lost the thoughts… I know I’m feeling the solar storm. It has been hard to sleep, and everything just feels off. It’s somewhat similar to what I feel like before an earthquake, which was disconcerting…
Interesting Solar Activity
Are you having trouble sleeping? SpaceWeather tells me Yesterday, July 30th, a dark magnetic filament on the sun erupted and hurled part of itself into space. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory tracked a bright CME moving away from the blast site at 700 km/s. Although the CME is not coming straight for Earth, it does have…
Solar Calm
I received this missive from SpaceWeather this evening: Less than two weeks ago, the sun was peppered with large active regions. Now, the face of the sun is almost completely blank. Suddenly, the sunspot number and the sun’s x-ray output have dropped to their lowest levels in years. Is Solar Maximum finished? Probably not, but…
Solar Activity in the First Third of Mercury Retrograde (in Gemini)
I got an email from SpaceWeather this morning: Breaking a weeks-long spell of quiet, the sun erupted on June 10th, producing not one but two X-class solar flares. The source is a new sunspot just emerging over the sun’s southeastern limb. This active region is not squarely facing our planet. However, it will become increasingly…
The April 25th X-Class Solar Flare
Solar flare alert! On April 25th, an active region near the sun’s western limb erupted, producing an impulsive X-class solar flare. A pulse of extreme UV radiation from the flare ionized Earth’s upper atmosphere and caused a shortwave radio blackout on the dayside of Earth. However, a CME hurled into space by the explosion will…
Storm’s A Comin’!
INCOMING STORM CLOUDS: Three or four CMEs that left the sun earlier this week will arrive in quick succession this weekend. Mostly, the blows they deliver to Earth’s magnetic field are expected to be weak, but the combined impacts could stir up significant geomagnetic activity. NOAA forecasters put the odds of a high-latitude geomagnetic storm…
The Universal Connection and Magnetic Crochet of this Solar Flare
Last night, this appeared in my inbox: The magnetic canopy of sunspot AR2017 erupted yesterday, March 29th, producing an impulsive X1-class solar flare. Ionizing radiation from the flare produced electrical currents in Earth’s upper atmosphere and a ripple in Earth’s magnetic field detected by magnetometers across the dayside of our planet. Read more about this…
The March Newsletter is up!
Regardless of what the weather might be telling us, Spring is Coming! But the weather certainly is trying to shake things up, isn’t it? I have two big pieces of news: * The website has a new, awesome design! I’ll still be tweaking around some pages, but the design is set and it is great….
How to Deal with Sun Spots and Solar Storms
I received an email today from SpaceWeather: One of the largest sunspots in years, AR1944, has turned toward Earth and it is crackling with strong flares. So far on Jan. 7th, the active region has produced M7- and X1-class eruptions, and more appear to be in the offing. As this alert is being issued, analysts…