Found a good "Solar Disruptions" link? Let Us Know!

Warnings of a ‘Solar Catastrophe’ in 2012 {NoWorldSystem.com} February 7, 2011: In 2006 and 2010 NASA warned the general population to get ready for a a once-in-a-lifetime solar storm in 2012. There was very little coverage of this in the news media, and I highly doubt the U.S. government would make go public about this anytime soon.

NASA 2012 Researchers say intense solar storm coming in 2012. NASA researchers announced that a storm is coming--the most intense solar maximum in fifty years that could rival the the solar storm of 1958. But just like hurricanes often do, they become far stronger then anyone expected. "Like most experts in the field, Hathaway has confidence in the conveyor belt model and agrees with Dikpati that the next solar maximum should be a doozy. But he disagrees with one point. Dikpati's forecast puts Solar Max at 2012. Hathaway believes it will arrive sooner, in 2010 or 2011." History shows that big sunspot cycles 'ramp up' faster than small ones," he says. "I expect to see the first sunspots of the next cycle appear in late 2006 or 2007--and Solar Max to be underway by 2010 or 2011." "Who's right? Time will tell. Either way, a storm is coming."

Space Weather Now - NOAA

Twenty-seven Day Outlook Prepared by the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, NOAA, Space Environment Center, the forecast provides the daily numbers for the 10.7cm Radio Flux, planetary A-index and Kp index.

The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) SOHO was launched on December 2, 1995. The SOHO project is being carried out by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as a cooperative effort between the two agencies. The observatory, travelling at a permanent vantage point 1.5 million kilometers ahead of the Earth, is designed to study the internal structure of the Sun, its extensive outer atmosphere and the origin of the solar wind, the stream of highly ionized gas that blows continuously outward through the Solar System. You can also get the SOHO Real-Time Images Screen-Saver (Win9x and Macs), free for the download.

Solar Data Analysis Center The Solar Data Analysis Center at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, USA, has a host of interesting items pertaining to solar observations of CMEs (coronal mass ejections). View a VR (virtual reality) movie of the solar disc, current solar images, and the latest information from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).

Solar Data This USA NOAA FTP site has, among other items, annual solar flux data back to 1947. Be sure to download the 'read me' files first, as they explain the data files within.

Solar Terrestrial Physics The US Department of Commerce's NOAA operates the National Geophysical Data Center. The NGDC 'manages environmental data in the fields of marine geology and geophysics, paleoclimatology, solar-terrestrial physics, solid earth geophysics, and glaciology (snow and ice). In each of these fields NGDC also operates a World Data Center WDC A) discipline center.' This page is the Solar-Terrestrial Physics Division home page, and includes links to descriptions of the data collections. Embedded in these pages is a link to an Introduction to the Ionosphere, well worth a read.

Space Environment Center Radio Users' Page The USA's NOAA Space Environment Center's staff writes that the purpose of this page is 'to provide radio operators with current data on the state of the ionosphere.' The site includes a current photo of the sun, a forecast, a 3-day plot of the x-ray flux and a 3-day plot of the geosynchronous satellite environment.

SpaceWeather.com This consumer-oriented site by NASA pulls together science news and information about the Sun-Earth environment. The latest solar disk images and news about upcoming solar disruptions make this site worthy of a bookmark. Sign up for the free mailing list.

Sunspot Index Data Center The SIDC pages are maintained by the Royal Observatory of Belgium. The main task of the center is to compute and broadcast the daily, monthly, and yearly international sunspot numbers, with middle range predictions (up to 12 months). Graphs and tables of current and historical data are also available.

'The end of the world' has already begun, UW scientists say In its 4.5 billion years, Earth has evolved from its hot, violent birth to the celebrated watery blue planet that stands out in pictures from space. But in a new book, two noted University of Washington astrobiologists say the planet already has begun the long process of devolving into a burned-out cinder, eventually to be swallowed by the sun. [PDF Link recovered 4/18/11]

Shielding grids from solar storms. Geomagnetic disturbances are a real danger to some grids— being prepared for one requires assessment of local conditions, as well as monitoring and warning systems

NOAA Magazine Online (Story 131) The impacts and costs associated with meteorological storms occurring on the Earth’s surface are obvious, but what about those associated with space weather? Solar or geomagnetic storms — just like hurricanes, tornadoes, hail and floods — can cause damage resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in economic losses each year.

Scientists worry about solar superstorm Californians have long been bracing for the "big one" in terms of an earthquake. But the sun lobs flares that are the most violent events in the solar system. A large flare releases a million times more energy than the largest earthquake.

Solar Storms Space weather generally varies with the 11-year sunspot cycle: the more sunspots, the more storms and the more voluminous the "solar wind," as scientists call the stream of charged particles that incessantly blows off the face of the sun. Already, we are well on the way to the next solar maximum, expected to peak next year (2000).

Solar Storms and You: Human Impacts Perhaps the most dramatic, recent impact occurred in March 1989 during the peak of the last sunspot cycle, when the sun produced one of the most powerful storms ever recorded. On March 13, 1989 Alaskan and Scandinavian observers were treated to a spectacular auroral display. In fact, this display was seen as far south as the Mediterranean and Japan. Although many millions of people marveled at this beautiful spectacle, many millions more were not so happy about it. Hydro-Quebec on Saint James Bay did the best it could to stabilize the power surges its lines received but ultimately failed the challenge. For 9 hours, large portions of Quebec were plunged into darkness.

Scientists calculate odds of doomsday scenarios for the solar ... The alternative to eventual incineration is being thrown out of the solar system into deep space. “The surface biosphere would rapidly shut down and oceans would freeze solid within one million years, but life could continue for some time near hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor, which are warmed by radioactive heat from deep within the Earth,” says Laughlin, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley.

Solar Superstorm Newly uncovered scientific data of recorded history's most massive space storm is helping a NASA scientist investigate its intensity and the probability that what occurred on Earth and in the heavens almost a century-and-a-half ago could happen again...

Solar Terrestrial Activity Report -- Jan Alvestad-DXLC

Disruptions From Sun’s Geomagnetic Storms Forecast With "Cat-Scan ... Three-dimensional images of magnetic storms from the Sun, developed by physicists at the University of California, San Diego and Japan's Nagoya University, are allowing space-weather forecasters to improve their predictions of solar disruptions on cycle.

Solar In a worst-case scenario, they say solar storms could knock out all high-frequency radio on the sunlit side of the Earth or expose airplane passengers in northern latitudes (near the North Pole) to the equivalent of 100 chest X-rays. However, space weather forecasters admit their knowledge is too crude to predict exactly when the Earth will feel the effects of the solar max.

A Twisted Solar Eruptive Prominence This 'Astronomy Picture of the Day' is an animated GIF of a 30-minute eruption that is twisted and forms a 'hook' capable of 10 Earths. We've never seen anything like it. Other links on the page take you to other images and background material, including an animation of the entire sun take at the same time. We believe the date was 8 Jan 2000, judging by the filenames.

Auroral Activity Extrapolated from NOAA/POES Instruments on board the NOAA Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite (POES) continually monitor the power flux carried by the protons and electrons that produce aurora in the atmosphere." Northern and Southern pole maps show the breadth of the current auroral zone, especially interesting to watch when there are solar disturbances.

Coronal Mass Ejection Arrival Prediction: More Accurate Space Storm Warnings Now Possible 'The arrival of billion-ton electrified-gas clouds from the Sun that cause severe space storms can now be predicted to within a half-day, a great improvement over the best previous estimates of within 2 - 5 days. Scientists at the Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C., and NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md., have created a model that reliably predicts how much time it takes for these clouds, called Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), to traverse the gulf between the Sun and the Earth, based on their initial speed from the Sun and their interaction with the solar wind.

Eruptive Prominence (APOD: 8 July 1999) Everyone reading these pages knows that solar disturbances affect radio propagation, particularly in the HF bands. On the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) Web site there was a fantastic picture of an immense solar prominence. The orbiting SOHO laboratory took the photo. Have a look. We've not seen anything like this photo before. It is quite striking.

Geophysical Alert Can't hear WWV (Colorado) or WWVH (Hawaii)? Here's the announcement that airs at H+18 on WWV and H+45 on WWVH. This is updated every three hours in step with the on-air announcements, usually available by H+05.

"Gentle" puffs of solar wind stir the Northern Lights With a team of three satellites, scientists now can make before-and-after measurements of the solar wind. Wind and the Advanced Composition Explorer, circling in a halo orbit about 1 million km sunward of Earth, measure the solar wind, moving at 300 to 600 km/s (up to 1.3 million mph), about 10 to 60 minutes before it is disturbed by the magnetosphere. Imagers aboard Polar, orbiting around the Earth's north and south poles, provide TV pictures of the aurora borealis." Fascinating reading and the auroral images from spaces are spectacular.

New NOAA Space Weather Scales Make Solar Max Effects More Predictable Akin to the Richter scales of earthquake intensity measurement on Earth, NOAA has derived new measurement techniques 'designed to characterize the severity and impact of upcoming solar storms on public safety and services.

IPS Radio & Space Services IPS is a unit of the Australian Government Department of Administrative Services and provides the Australian radio propagation and space environment services. IPS offers HF radio prediction services, daily solar terrestrial reports, and data to drive its commercial propagation software.

SOHO Sees Right Through The Sun To Find Stormy Regions On The Other Side Scientists have figured out how to use 'ripples' on the sun's surface, seen with the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, to observe disturbances on the side of the sun away from earth. This provides at least a week's notice of pending problems. Interesting stuff indeed.

SOHO spies the far side of the Sun Scientists have found they can peek around the other side of the sun. "SWAN, short for Solar Wind Anisotropies, is a telescope on board SOHO Solar and Heliospheric Observatory that can map the whole sky in ultraviolet light. This kind of observation is impossible from Earth because the atmosphere completely filters short-wavelength UV rays." This discovery could help to predict the solar storms that sometimes affect the Earth. And there is a fascinating MPG-format movie that shows what SWAN found.

Solar Activity Heats Up On 28 August 1999, a massive solar flare, accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME), erupted on the sun. NASA Space Science News released a story with photos and animated GIF images, warning about possible auroral displays. Though this occurrence is past tense, do take a look at the story for the graphical content. The CME photo series (as an animated GIF) is quite striking. Now you can see what Mike Bird is talking about!

The Sun's Sizzling Corona Scientists are now unraveling a 130-year old mystery of the corona, identifying a new element seen within the corona. But one answer leads to more questions as improved scientific tools allow research of the "glow" around around the solar disk.

Surfing Magnetic Waves in the Solar Atmosphere: How the Solar Wind Gets Up to Speed "The high-speed portion of the solar wind achieves its unexpectedly high velocity -- up to 500 miles per second -- by "surfing" magnetic waves in the Sun's outer atmosphere, according to observations made by two spacecraft. For 37 years, solar scientists have been puzzled by the fact that the high-speed solar wind travels twice as fast as predicted by theory. Observations and theoretical analyses have discovered a surprising explanation for this mystery:" rapidly vibrating magnetic fields within the corona that form magnetic waves appear to accelerate the solar wind.

The Sun's Dark Secret: How Sunspots Pull Themselves Together Using data gathered from instruments aboard SOHO, new research provides a look at sunspots beneath the surface of the sun. It is a technique akin to ultrasound in today's healthcare system. Fascinating stuff, and there are some animated illustrations to help explain the the concepts

Transition Region And Coronal Explorer (TRACE) TRACE enables solar physicists to study the connections between fine-scale magnetic fields and the associated plasma structures on the Sun in a quantitative way by observing the photosphere, transition region, and corona... The launch schedule allows joint observations with SoHO during the rising phase of the solar cycle to sunspot maximum. No transition region or coronal imager has witnessed the onset and rise of a solar cycle. The two satellites provide complementary observations: TRACE produces the high spatial and temporal resolution images, while SoHO yields images and spectral data out to 30 solar radii at much lower spatial and temporal resolution. A database of information is available.

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