Sunspot activity in freefall

[Daehawk]

Well that'll really throw off The Scouts.

[Unagi]

But a few times every million years, the field's polarity reverses and the magnetic North Pole and South Pole trade places. The last time this happened was about 780,000 years ago, and the process was previously estimated to take thousands of years, shifting at a rate of about one degree per year.

shifting at a rate of about one degree per year. That would take, about 180 years... not 'thousands of years'.

doesn't that read just blatantly wrong?

[Unagi]

I'm confused. I thought that the N/S Poles weakened and weakened and then, more or less, flipped. This makes it sound like half-way through the process one would see the North Pole as being a point on the equator - let's say, to the East (or what we used to call East).

[Kraken]

But a few times every million years, the field's polarity reverses and the magnetic North Pole and South Pole trade places. The last time this happened was about 780,000 years ago, and the process was previously estimated to take thousands of years, shifting at a rate of about one degree per year.

shifting at a rate of about one degree per year. That would take, about 180 years... not 'thousands of years'.

doesn't that read just blatantly wrong?

I presume that it wanders a lot before flipping. Should've been explained; I did a double-take, too.

[Jaymann]

So earth has a molten core that spins to create magnetic fields that protect us from cosmic rays. That seems pretty fortunate. Take that plus a large moon plus Jupiter that snatches up most asteroids and you've got some answers to Fermi's Paradox.

[Isgrimnur]

USA Today

A sunspot pointing toward Earth has the potential to cause solar flares, but experts told USA TODAY it's far from unusual and eased concerns over how flares would affect the Blue Planet.

Active Region 3038, or AR3038, has been growing over the past week, said Rob Steenburgh, acting lead of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Forecast Office. The sunspot's size and growth rate are fairly normal, he said.

[LawBeefaroni]

On the other hand, a massive solar flare event is pretty much in like with the last 6 years so I expect at least some power grid failures.

[Isgrimnur]

The sun’s activity is peaking sooner than expected

Over the course of a solar cycle, the sun will transition from a calm to an intense and active period. During the peak of activity, called solar maximum, the sun’s magnetic poles flip. Then, the sun will grow quiet again during a solar minimum.

Initially, peak activity was forecast to begin in July 2025. Now, experts believe the cyclical peak is more likely to take place in mid- to late 2024.

[Isgrimnur]

From Google Trends, it looks like the lag between people Googling cocktail recipes and 'hangover cure' is 14 hours.

[Isgrimnur]

Behemoth sunspot AR3664 unleashes its biggest solar flare yet, sparking radio blackouts on Earth

The X3.98 flare peaked in the early hours this morning (May 10) at 2:54 a.m. (0654 GMT) triggering either temporary or complete loss of high frequency (HF) radio signals across Asia, eastern Europe and eastern Africa.
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The radiation travels toward Earth at the speed of light and ionizes (gives electrical charge to) the top of Earth's atmosphere, creating a higher-density environment for the radio signals to navigate through.
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When attempting to travel through that ionized layer, radio waves can't help but interact with electrons that've now flooded their environment. In doing so, the radio waves lose energy due to more frequent collisions with the electrons. This can lead to radio signals becoming degraded or completely absorbed, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC).

[Isgrimnur]

spaceweather.com

THE FIRST CME HAS ARRIVED: The first of six CMEs hurled toward Earth by giant sunspot AR3664 is minutes away form striking our planet's magnetic field. It has just passed the DSCOVR spacecraft and will soon close the gap to Earth. This could be a 'Cannibal CME' composed of two or three individual storm clouds--or simply the first of six. We will soon find out.

UPDATE--SIX CMEs ARE HEADING FOR EARTH: The number of CMEs heading for Earth keeps increasing. The total is now six following this morning's X3.9-class flare from giant sunspot AR3664.
...
According to a NOAA forecast model, the first three CMEs could merge to form a "Cannibal CME." Cannibal CMEs form when fast-moving CMEs overtake and gobble up slower CMEs in front of them. Internal shock waves created by such CME collisions do an good job sparking geomagnetic storms when they strike Earth's magnetic field.

The Cannibal CME is expected to arrive on May 11th. It alone could spark a strong (G3) geomagnetic storm. With two more CMEs following close behind, storm levels could become extreme (G4), sparking auroras at mid- to low-latitudes across Europe and the USA.

[Jeff V]

I saw a news story suggesting the aurora borealis can be seen this far south this weekend.

[Daehawk]

Im in SE TN and should be able to see it.

[Holman]

I hope to see it, but in PA we're expecting rain and cloudy weather all weekend.

[hitbyambulance]

i'm currently in Alaska, which should be a shoo-in, except

* the clouds (it was raining pretty steadily with an incoming atmospheric river the last few days)
* if the EMF activity is TOO strong, it actually pushes the aurora activity further south! a very strong one like this may move all the way down to Texas.

[Kraken]

The aurora is probably too gauzy to overcome our skyglow here. I'll check it out if it's clear. I've seen auroras on the horizon in rural Michigan a few times.

[Sudy]

I wasn't able to see much with the naked eye here in southern Ontario; I can make something out, and my brain knows something special is going on from the patterns (banding/streaking/etc.), but there's barely any colour and I didn't detect any movement.

But slap on my phone's simple nighttime camera filter, and I got some brilliant views with the default 3-5 second exposure:



Again, I couldn't see anything like that with the naked eye. Oh how I wish I could. But, I'm still in awe of being able to experience this!

[Daehawk]

Between the industrial park glow and the trees I cant see a thing. my sister could only get a few pics where she was.

[Kraken]

I found out that one must go outside to see this, so I watched it on the internet. The potential payoff for putting on pants just wasn't there.

[Blackhawk]

I went out several times, but nada. Whether it's everyone having ultra-halogen-LED-eye-melting porch lights, haze, or it's just not visible, I don't know.

[Smoove_B]

It was totally clouded over until after 12am here. I went out around 1am and there were some spots where I could see stars and I want to say I saw a light purple haze, but that might have just been wishful thinking. The pictures people are sharing online are amazing.

[Exodor]

My kid was able to "see" it down in Ashland - the first shot is what she sees with her eye, the second is with nightmode enabled on her phone:

[bimg][/bimg]

[bimg][/bimg]


I didn't see anything because it wasn't visible until close to midnight and my old ass was long asleep by then.

[Kraken]

It was totally clouded over until after 12am here. I went out around 1am and there were some spots where I could see stars and I want to say I saw a light purple haze, but that might have just been wishful thinking. The pictures people are sharing online are amazing.

A couple of my friends have shared beautiful photos of colorful skies, but all said they couldn't see anything with the naked eye. If I can only see auroras in pictures, I don't feel compelled to be the one taking the pictures.

[Smoove_B]

Interesting. Well, then maybe I just saw light pollution from the strip mall that is a few miles away.

[Blackhawk]

Yeah, if all that can be done is taking pictures, it wouldn't be all that different from just looking up a picture.

I did see them sometime in the early 90s here in Indiana, and they were clearly visible.

/edit - I'm going to guess it was November 1991.

[disarm]

The IR nightvision on my Nest doorbell cam picked up a pretty cool wide-angle view of the whole sky swirling for about 90 minutes last night. I'm trying to download the video and turn it into a time lapse, but the Nest website is acting funny today.

Other than that, we experienced the same as most...mild color of the sky by the naked eye, but really cool through a camera.

[Rumpy]

Somewhat ironically, while I'd normally be able to see a brilliant display from my location, most of Northern Ontario was clouded out and I didn't get to see much of anything.

FWIW, even while the naked eye will notice something in the sky, which is absolutely possible on a good night of high-activity/kp index, camera sensitivities are able to capture much more than what the eye is inevitably going to see. In the past, I've taken pictures of the northern lights completely by mistake just by having a camera pointing in the right direction while I didn't notice anything going on with my eyes. That I captured anything was a total fluke, as I was set up for doing some astrophotography for a different reason.

This was the end result, in 2012:

[hitbyambulance]

extremely active lights here in SE Alaska - i had never seen before where the source of the lights appeared to be directly overhead, while the 'aurora rays' streamed down on all sides like a dome effect.

[Lassr]

From my back yard last night. Barely visible with the naked eye but the camera picked up just fine.

[YellowKing]

It was a bust here, but I didn't really expect to see much. I mainly used it as an excuse to light the fire pit and get the kids outside and off the screens. It was a beautiful night just to hang out underneath the stars.

[Carpet_pissr]

It was a bust here….light the fire pit

I’ve cracked the case wide open!

[Pyperkub]

Way to go, cochise!

[Holman]

I was promised a complete collapse of civilization from these solar flares. What a rip off.

[Daehawk]

Musk's Starlink satellites disrupted by major solar storm

Starlink, the satellite arm of Elon Musk's SpaceX, warned on Saturday of a "degraded service" as the Earth is battered by the biggest geomagnetic storm due to solar activity in two decades.