Octopus Overlords

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 10:02 pm

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.

Unagi wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 11:53 pm

Isgrimnur wrote: ↑Wed Jul 08, 2020 10:02 pm

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?

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.

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.

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

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).

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.
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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.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2024 11:22 am 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.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Sat May 11, 2024 11:04 pm It was a bust here….light the fire pit

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.