Articles Tagged "Solar News"

The solar flare which erupted on March 7 was the most powerful eruption ever observed by Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT).

The flare, classified as X5.4, made the sun briefly the brightest object in the gamma-ray sky.

"For most of Fermi's four years in orbit, its LAT saw the sun as a faint, steady gamma-ray source thanks to the impacts of high-speed particles called cosmic rays," says Nicola Omodei, an astrophysicist at Stanford University in California. "Now we're beginning to see what the sun itself can do."

At the flare's peak, it was emitting gamma rays with two billion times the energy of visible light, or about four billion electron volts - easily setting a record for the highest-energy light ever detected during or immediately after a solar flare.

When the Greek poet Homer was writing The Odyssey around 2,800 years ago, the Earth went through an abrupt period of cooling, caused by the sun - and the same could happen again soon.

Scientists at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences analysed lake sediment in Lake Meerfelder Maar, and found direct evidence of a sudden cooling caused by a 'solar minimum'.

Some scientists suspect that the current period of high solar activity - including increased sunspots and solar storms this year - will be followed by a 'minimum' period, which could even cause an Ice Age.

Click source for more: also read By Jove I Think They've Nearly Got It: Climatic effects of a solar minimum and this report from Lewis Page: Solar quiet spell like the one now looming cooled climate in the past - theregister.co.uk

The sun may be entering a period of reduced activity that could result in lower temperatures on Earth, according to Japanese researchers.

Officials of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and the Riken research foundation said on April 19 that the activity of sunspots appeared to resemble a 70-year period in the 17th century in which London’s Thames froze over and cherry blossoms bloomed later than usual in Kyoto.

In that era, known as the Maunder Minimum, temperatures are estimated to have been about 2.5 degrees lower than in the second half of the 20th century.

The Japanese study found that the trend of current sunspot activity is similar to records from that period.

The researchers also found signs of unusual magnetic changes in the sun. Normally, the sun’s magnetic field flips about once every 11 years. In 2001, the sun’s magnetic north pole, which was in the northern hemisphere, flipped to the south.

Frank Hill: Future sunspot drop, but no new ice age.

Frank Hill is an astronomer at the U.S. National Solar Observatory. Last summer (June, 2011) Hill and colleagues announced their conclusions that sunspot activity might be headed for a dramatic drop in activity, beginning around the year 2019. The sun normally follows a cycle of activity lasting about 11 years. The current cycle, Cycle 24, is now heading towards its peak. Frank Hill and colleagues are looking toward the next cycle — Cycle 25. Based on data showing decades-long trends, they are suggesting its peak might be delayed or that it might not have a typical peak in activity at all. Hill spoke more about the recent sunspot study with EarthSky’s Jorge Salazar.

Frank Hill told EarthSky that — while his team did suggest a drop in solar activity beginning around 2019 — they did not suggest Earth would cool as a result.

Are you familiar with media reports that have gotten this story wrong?

Yes, actually. It seems to me that a lot of reports have come out and said that we have predicted a new ice age. That is making the leap from low sunspot activity to cooling. We did not predict a little ice age.

Abstract

Relations between the length of a sunspot cycle and the average temperature in the same and the next cycle are calculated for a number of meteorologicalstations in Norway and in the North Atlantic region. No significant trend is found between the length of a cycle and the average temperature in the same cycle, but a significant negative trend is found between the length of a cycle and the temperature in the next cycle. This provides a tool to predict an average temperature decrease of at least 1.0 ◦C from solar cycle 23 to 24 for the stations and areas analyzed. We find for the Norwegian local stations investigated that 25–56% of the temperature increase the last 150 years may be attributed to the Sun. For 3 North Atlantic stations we get 63–72% solar contribution. This points to the Atlantic currents as reinforcing a solarsignal.

Click source to download PDF file, see also Solar activity and Svalbard temperatures

On Dec. 31st, a wave of ionization swept through the high atmosphere over Europe when sunspot AR1389 unleashed another M2-class solar flare. "There was a very clear sudden ionospheric disturbance on my VLF radio instruments," reports Rob Stammes, who sends these data from the Polar Light Center in Lofoten, Norway:

"The sun is below the horizon where we are located north of the Arctic Circle," says Stammes. "This event shows we still have some contact with the sun."

Click source for more

After five years of surprising quiet, the sun roared to life in 2011.

Our star erupted with numerous strong flares and waves of charged particles. Many researchers predict the surge will culminate in a peak in the sun's 11-year activity cycle in 2013.

This year also marked several key advances in scientists' understanding of the dynamics driving our favorite star. Here are some of the solar highlights of 2011:

Solar flares and CMEs

Having been relatively quiet since 2005, the sun spouted off a number of powerful flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) this year.

CMEs are made up of massive clouds of plasma that are sent streaking through space in any direction at several million mph. When these clouds are aimed at Earth, they can spawn geomagnetic storms that wreak havoc with GPS signals, radio communications and power grids

Click source to read FULL report from Nola Taylor Redd

A relatively quiet stretch for the sun in recent years does not necessarily herald an impending solar activity low of historic proportions, a new study reports.

The sun was quiescent from 2005 to 2010, spouting off relatively few flares and eruptions of solar plasma known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). That dry spell lasted about twice as long as usual, prompting some scientists to predict that a "grand minimum" of solar activity — the likes of which hasn't been seen in 300 years — could be on the way.

But the opposite could just as easily be true, the study suggests.

"[A]fter looking at data of past solar activity, we have pointed out that it is just as likely that the sun will go into a grand maximum again (it just came out of one) than into a grand minimum," said study lead author Sami Solanki, of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPISSR) in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany.

Solar Flares and Electrical Industry Insiders (12th Nov 2011)



NASA ARTICLE: http://earthsky.org/space/killer-solar-flares-a-physical-impossibility-in-2012

Also see NASA Video Link http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/2012-superFlares.html

Another sunspot number record for Solar Cycle 24 has been shattered: On Wednesday, November 9, the daily sunspot number reached 220, the highest it has been in more than eight years.

The last time the sunspot number was higher than 220 was November 1, 2003 when the number was 277. The next day -- November 10 -- the daily sunspot number dropped back to 164. Two days before it reached 277 in 2003, the sunspot number was 330, a harder record to beat.

Click source to read FULL report

Latest from SpaceWeather.com..INCOMING CME: A CME is heading for Earth. It left the sun on Nov. 9th when a magnetic filament in the vicinity of sunspot complex 1342-1343 erupted. The M1-class explosion hurled a bright cloud of plasma into space.....Although the eruption was not squarely aimed at Earth, the CME is likely to deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field on Nov. 11th or 12th. NOAA forecasters estimate a 25% chance of high-latitude geomagnetic storms...Click SpaceWeather Link for more inc. Video