What Was the Carrington Event?

What Was The Carrington Event?
What Was The Carrington Event?

Isn’t modern society great? With all this technology surrounding us in all directions. It’s like a cocoon of sweet, fluffy silicon. There are chips in my fitness tracker, my bluetooth headset, mobile phone, car keys and that’s just on my body.

At all times in the Cain household, there dozens of internet devices connected to my wifi router. I’m not sure how we got to the point, but there’s one thing I know for sure, more is better. If I could use two smartphones at the same time, I totally would.

And I’m sure you agree, that without all this technology, life would be a pale shadow of its current glory. Without these devices, we’d have to actually interact with each other. Maybe enjoy the beauty of nature, or something boring like that.

It turns out, that terrible burning orb in the sky, the Sun, is fully willing and capable of bricking our precious technology. It’s done so in the past, and it’s likely to take a swipe at us in the future.

I’m talking about solar storms, of course, tremendous blasts of particles and radiation from the Sun which can interact with the Earth’s magnetosphere and overwhelm anything with a wire.

Credit: NASA

In fact, we got a sneak preview of this back in 1859, when a massive solar storm engulfed the Earth and ruined our old timey technology. It was known as the Carrington Event.

Follow your imagination back to Thursday, September 1st, 1859. This was squarely in the middle of the Victorian age.

And not the awesome, fictional Steampunk Victorian age where spectacled gentleman and ladies of adventure plied the skies in their steam-powered brass dirigibles.

No, it was the regular crappy Victorian age of cholera and child labor. Technology was making huge leaps and bounds, however, and the first telegraph lines and electrical grids were getting laid down.

Imagine a really primitive version of today’s electrical grid and internet.

On that fateful morning, the British astronomer Richard Carrington turned his solar telescope to the Sun, and was amazed at the huge sunspot complex staring back at him. So impressed that he drew this picture of it.

Richard Carrington’s sketch of the sunspots seen just before the 1859 Carrington event.

While he was observing the sunspot, Carrington noticed it flash brightly, right in his telescope, becoming a large kidney-shaped bright white flare.

Carrington realized he was seeing unprecedented activity on the surface of the Sun. Within a minute, the activity died down and faded away.

And then about 5 minutes later. Aurora activity erupted across the entire planet. We’re not talking about those rare Northern Lights enjoyed by the Alaskans, Canadians and Northern Europeans in the audience. We’re talking about everyone, everywhere on Earth. Even in the tropics.

In fact, the brilliant auroras were so bright you could read a book to them.

The beautiful night time auroras was just one effect from the monster solar flare. The other impact was that telegraph lines and electrical grids were overwhelmed by the electricity pushed through their wires. Operators got electrical shocks from their telegraph machines, and the telegraph paper lit on fire.

What happened? The most powerful solar flare ever observed is what happened.

In this image, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured an X1.2 class solar flare, peaking on May 15, 2013. Credit: NASA/SDO

A solar flare occurs because the Sun’s magnetic field lines can get tangled up in the solar atmosphere. In a moment, the magnetic fields reorganize themselves, and a huge wave of particles and radiation is released.

Flares happen in three stages. First, you get the precursor stage, with a blast of soft X-ray radiation. This is followed by the impulsive stage, where protons and electrons are accelerated off the surface of the Sun. And finally, the decay stage, with another burp of X-rays as the flare dies down.

These stages can happen in just a few seconds or drag out over an hour.

Remember those particles hurled off into space? They take several hours or a few days to reach Earth and interact with our planet’s protective magnetosphere, and then we get to see beautiful auroras in the sky.

This geomagnetic storm causes the Earth’s magnetosphere to jiggle around, which drives charges through wires back and forth, burning out circuits, killing satellites, overloading electrical grids.

Back in 1859, this wasn’t a huge deal, when our quaint technology hadn’t progressed beyond the occasional telegraph tower.

Today, our entire civilization depends on wires. There are wires in the hundreds of satellites flying overhead that we depend on for communications and navigation. Our homes and businesses are connected by an enormous electrical grid. Airplanes, cars, smartphones, this camera I’m using.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons.

Everything is electronic, or controlled by electronics.

Think it can’t happen? We got a sneak preview back in March, 1989 when a much smaller geomagnetic storm crashed into the Earth. People as far south as Florida and Cuba could see auroras in the sky, while North America’s entire interconnected electrical grid groaned under the strain.

The Canadian province of Quebec’s electrical grid wasn’t able to handle the load and went entirely offline. For 12 hours, in the freezing Quebec winter, almost the entire province was without power. I’m telling you, that place gets cold, so this was really bad timing.

Satellites went offline, including NASA’s TDRS-1 communication satellite, which suffered 250 separate glitches during the storm.

And on July 23, 2012, a Carrington-class solar superstorm blasted off the Sun, and off into space. Fortunately, it missed the Earth, and we were spared the mayhem.

If a solar storm of that magnitude did strike the Earth, the cleanup might cost $2 trillion, according to a study by the National Academy of Sciences.

The July 23, 2012 CME would have caused a Carrington-like event had it hit Earth. Thankfully for us and our technology, it missed. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

It’s been 160 years since the Carrington Event, and according to ice core samples, this was the most powerful solar flare over the last 500 years or so. Solar astronomers estimate solar storms like this happen twice a millennium, which means we’re not likely to experience another one in our lifetimes.

But if we do, it’ll cause worldwide destruction of technology and anyone reliant on it. You might want to have a contingency plan with some topic starters when you can’t access the internet for a few days. Locate nearby interesting nature spots to explore and enjoy while you wait for our technological civilization to be rebuilt.

Have you ever seen an aurora in your lifetime? Give me the details of your experience in the comments.

How Can You see the Northern Lights?

Aurora borealis in Fairbanks, AK. on Monday night March 16. Credit: John Chumack

The Northern Lights have fascinated human beings for millennia. In fact, their existence has informed the mythology of many cultures, including the Inuit, Northern Cree, and ancient Norse. They were also a source of intense fascination for the ancient Greeks and Romans, and were seen as a sign from God by medieval Europeans.

Thanks to the birth of modern astronomy, we now know what causes both the Aurora Borealis and its southern sibling – Aurora Australis. Nevertheless, they remain the subject of intense fascination, scientific research, and are a major tourist draw. For those who live north of 60° latitude, this fantastic light show is also a regular occurrence.

Causes:

Aurora Borealis (and Australis) is caused by interactions between energetic particles from the Sun and the Earth’s magnetic field. The invisible field lines of Earth’s magnetoshere travel from the Earth’s northern magnetic pole to its southern magnetic pole. When charged particles reach the magnetic field, they are deflected, creating a “bow shock” (so-named because of its apparent shape) around Earth.

However, Earth’s magnetic field is weaker at the poles, and some particles are therefore able to enter the Earth’s atmosphere and collide with gas particles in these regions. These collisions emit light that we perceive as wavy and dancing, and are generally a pale, yellowish-green in color.

The variations in color are due to the type of gas particles that are colliding. The common yellowish-green is produced by oxygen molecules located about 100 km (60 miles) above the Earth, whereas high-altitude oxygen – at heights of up to 320 km (200 miles) – produce all-red auroras. Meanwhile, interactions between charged particles and nitrogen will produces blue or purplish-red auroras.

Variability:

The visibility of the northern (and southern) lights depends on a lot of factors, much like any other type of meteorological activity. Though they are generally visible in the far northern and southern regions of the globe, there have been instances in the past where the lights were visible as close to the equator as Mexico.

In places like Alaska, Norther Canada, Norway and Siberia, the northern lights are often seen every night of the week in the winter. Though they occur year-round, they are only visible when it is rather dark out. Hence why they are more discernible during the months where the nights are longer.

The magnetic field and electric currents in and around Earth generate complex forces that have immeasurable impact on every day life. The field can be thought of as a huge bubble, protecting us from cosmic radiation and charged particles that bombard Earth in solar winds. It’s shaped by winds of particles blowing from the sun called the solar wind, the reason it’s flattened on the “sun-side” and swept out into a long tail on the opposite side of the Earth. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab
The magnetic field and electric currents in and around Earth generate complex forces, and also lead to the phenomena known as aurorae. Credit: ESA/ATG medialab

Because they depend on the solar wind, auroras are more plentiful during peak periods of activity in the Solar Cycle. This cycle takes places every 11 years, and is marked by the increase and decrease of sunspots on the sun’s surface. The greatest number of sunspots in any given solar cycle is designated as a “Solar Maximum“, whereas the lowest number is a “Solar Minimum.”

A Solar Maximum also accords with bright regions appearing in the Sun’s corona, which are rooted in the lower sunspots. Scientists track these active regions since they are often the origin of eruptions on the Sun, such as solar flares or coronal mass ejections.

The most recent solar minimum occurred in 2008. As of January 2010, the Sun’s surface began to increase in activity, which began with the release of a lower-intensity M-class flare. The Sun continued to get more active, culminating in a Solar Maximum by the summer of 2013.

Locations for Viewing:

The ideal places to view the Northern Lights are naturally located in geographical regions north of 60° latitude.  These include northern Canada, Greenland, Iceland, Scandinavia, Alaska, and Northern Russia. Many organizations maintain websites dedicated to tracking optimal viewing conditions.

The camera recorded pale purple and red but the primary color visible to the eye was green. Credit: Bob Kin
An image captured of the northern lights, which appear pale purple and red, though the primary color visible to the eye was green. Credit: Bob Kin

For instance, the Geophysical Institute of the University of Alaska Fairbanks maintains the Aurora Forecast. This site is regularly updated to let residents know when auroral activity is high, and how far south it will extend. Typically, residents who live in central or northern Alaska (from Fairbanks to Barrow) have a better chance than those living in the south (Anchorage to Juneau).

In Northern Canada, auroras are often spotted from the Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Northern Quebec. However, they are sometimes seen from locations like Dawson Creek, BC; Fort McMurry, Alberta; northern Saskatchewan and the town of Moose Factory by James Bay, Ontario. For information, check out Canadian Geographic Magazine’s “Northern Lights Across Canada“.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency also provides 30 minute forecasts on auroras through their Space Weather Prediction Center. And then there’s Aurora Alert, an Android App that allows you to get regular updates on when and where an aurora will be visible in your region.

Understanding the scientific cause of auroras has not made them any less awe-inspiring or wondrous. Every year, countless people venture to locations where they can be seen. And for those serving aboard the ISS, they got the best seat in the house!

Speaking of which, be sure to check out this stunning NASA video which shows the Northern Lights being viewed from the ISS:

We have written many interesting articles about Auroras here at Universe Today. Here’s The Northern and Southern Lights – What is an Aurora?, What is the Aurora Borealis?, What is the Aurora Australis?, What Causes the Northern Lights?, How Does the Aurora Borealis Form?, and Watch Fast and Furious All-sky Aurora Filmed in Real Time.

For more information, visit the THEMIS website – a NASA mission that is currently studying space weather in great detail. The Space Weather Center has information on the solar wind and how it causes aurorae.

Astronomy Cast also has episodes on the subject, like Episode 42: Magnetism Everywhere.

Sources:

The Sun

This image from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) image shows large magnetically active regions and a pair of curving erupting prominences on June 28, 2000 during the current solar cycle 23 maximum. Prominences are huge clouds of relatively cool dense plasma suspended in the Sun's hot, thin corona. Magnetically active regions cause the principal total solar irradiance variations during each solar cycle. The hottest areas appear almost white, while the darker red areas indicate cooler temperatures. Credit: NASA & European Space Agency (ESA)
The Sun. Credit: NASA & European Space Agency (ESA)

The Sun is the center of the Solar System and the source of all life and energy here on Earth. It accounts for more than 99.86% of the mass of the Solar System and it’s gravity dominates all the planets and objects that orbit it. Since the beginning of history, human beings have understood the Sun’s importance to our world, it’s seasons, the diurnal cycle, and the life-cycle of plants.

Because of this, the Sun has been at the center of many ancient culture’s mythologies and systems of worship. From the Aztecs, Mayans and Incas to the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Druids, the Sun was a central deity because it was seen as the bringer of all light and life. In time, our understanding of the Sun has changed and become increasingly empirical. But that has done nothing to diminish it’s significance.

Continue reading “The Sun”

Solar ‘Bombs’ And Mini-Tornadoes Spotted By Sun-Watching Spacecraft

An image of a May 9, 2014 coronal mass ejection from the Sun using data from both the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft and the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA, Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory

My, the Sun is a violent place. I mean, we knew that already, but there’s even more evidence for that using new data from a brand-new NASA spacecraft. There’s talk now about tornadoes and jets and even “bombs” swirling amid our Sun’s gassy environment.

A huge set of results from NASA’s Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) spacecraft reveals the true nature of a mysterious transition zone between Sun’s surface and the corona, or atmosphere. Besides the pretty fireworks and videos, these phenomena are telling scientists more about how the Sun moves energy from the center to the outskirts. And, it could tell us more about how stars work in general.

The results are published in five papers yesterday (Oct. 15) in Science magazine. Below, a brief glimpse of what each of these papers revealed about our closest star.

Bombs

This is a heck of a lot of energy packed in here. Raging at temperatures of 200,000 degrees Fahrenheit (111,093 degrees Celsius) are heat “pockets” — also called “bombs” because they release energy quickly. They were found lower in the atmosphere than expected. The paper is here (led by Hardi Peter of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany.)

Tornadoes

It’s a twist! You can see some structures in the chromosphere, just above the Sun’s surface, showing gas spinning like a tornado. They spin around as fast as 12 miles (19 kilometers) a second, which is considered slow-moving on the Sun. The paper is here (led by Bart De Pontieu, the IRIS science lead at Lockheed Martin in California).

High-speed jets

Artist's impression of the solar wind from the sun (left) interacting with Earth's magnetosphere (right). Credit: NASA
Artist’s impression of the solar wind from the sun (left) interacting with Earth’s magnetosphere (right). Credit: NASA

How does the solar wind — that constant stream of charged particles that sometimes cause aurora on Earth — come to be? IRIS spotted high-speed jets of material moving faster than ever observed, 90 miles (145 kilometers) a second. Since these jets are emerging in spots where the magnetic field is weaker (called coronal holes), scientists suspect this could be a source of the solar wind since the particles are thought to originate from there. The paper is here (led by Hui Tian at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts.)

Nanoflares

A solar filament erupts with a coronal mass ejection in this image captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory in August 2012. Credit: NASA's GSFC, SDO AIA Team
A solar filament erupts with a coronal mass ejection in this image captured by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory in August 2012. Credit: NASA’s GSFC, SDO AIA Team

Those solar flares the Sun throws off happen when magnetic field lines cross and then snap back into place, flinging particles into space. Nanoflares could do the same thing to heat up the corona, and that’s something else that IRIS is examining. The paper is here (led by Paola Testa, at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.)

Structures and more

And here is the transition region in glorious high-definition. Improving on data from the Skylab space station in the 1970s (bottom of video), you can see all sorts of mini-structures on the Sun. The more we learn about these 2,000-mile (3,220-km) objects, the better we’ll understand how heating moves through the Sun. The paper is here (led by Viggo Hansteen, at the University of Oslo in Norway.)

Source: NASA

NASA Explains: The Difference Between CMEs and Solar Flares

Solar prominences and filaments on the Sun on September 18, 2014, as seen with a hydrogen alpha filter. Credit and copyright: John Chumack/Galactic Images.

This is a question we are often asked: what is the difference between a coronal mass ejection (CME) and a solar flare? We discussed it in a recent astrophoto post, but today NASA put out a video with amazing graphics that explains it — and visualizes it — extremely well.

“CMEs and solar flares are both explosions that occur on the Sun,” the folks at NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center’s Scientific Visualization Studio explain. “Sometimes they occur together, but they are not the same thing.”

CMEs are giant clouds of particles from the Sun hurled out into space, while flares are flashes of light — occurring in various wavelengths — on the Sun.

You can find even more details from NASA here.

Astrophoto: The Sun as a Work of Art

A stylized Coronal Mass Ejection: The Sun as work of art. Credit and copyright: Rick Ellis.

Here’s a solar flare with a little flair added! Astrophotographer Rick Ellis from Toronto, Canada created this “artsy” Sun by using a series of photoshop filters and effects with a combination of two images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory taken on April 12, 2013. He tinkered with the contrast at specific color ranges, applied “equalization,” and used a filter called “accented edges.”

“Then I posterized it and ran it through the “posterize edges” filter which really brings out many details,” Rick said via email.

Rick admitted to some confusion about the difference between solar flares and coronal mass ejections, and so we figured this might be a good time to explain. They do have several similarities, however: both solar flares and CMEs are energetic events on the Sun that are both associated with high energy particles, and they both depend on magnetic fields on the Sun.

In the case of a CME, coronal material is ejected into space at high speeds. According to Berkeley University the most obvious difference between a solar flare and a CME is the spatial scale on which they occur.

“Flares are local events as compared to CMEs which are much larger eruptions of the corona,” says the Berkeley webpage, and sometimes a CME can be larger than the Sun itself. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections often occur together, but each can also take place in the absence of the other.

Want to get your astrophoto featured on Universe Today? Join our Flickr group or send us your images by email (this means you’re giving us permission to post them). Please explain what’s in the picture, when you took it, the equipment you used, etc.

Kapow! Moderate Solar Flare Erupts From The Sun, But Likely Won’t Affect Earth

Hot material shines brightly in this close-up of a moderate flare erupting on the sun Aug. 24, 2014. Credit: NASA/SDO

While this solar peak has been weaker than usual, from time to time we get a moderate punch from the Sun. Here’s an example — what NASA calls a “mid-level” solar flare blasting off the Sun at 8:16 a.m. EDT (1:16 p.m. UTC) yesterday (Aug. 26).

While the related coronal mass ejection can cause auroras high in Earth’s atmosphere and (in more severe cases) cause telecommunications disruptions, in this case the U.S. government isn’t expecting much.

“Given the location of this event,  the associated coronal mass ejection is well off the Sun-Earth line and no significant geomagnetic storming is anticipated as a result,” wrote the National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center in an update today.

NASA says the flare, which was captured by the Solar Dynamics Observatory, is an M5 flare. X-class flares are about 10 times more powerful than M-class ones.

An unrelated solar event recently caused auroras that astronauts spotted from the International Space Station.

Blast! Sun Pops Off A Moderate Solar Flare. Could Others Follow Soon?

A moderate solar flare erupts on the sun July 8, 2014 in this image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA/SDO

With a watchful NASA spacecraft capturing its moves, the Sun sent off a “mid-level” solar flare on Tuesday (July 8) that you can watch (over and over again) in the video above. The Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the explosion around 12:20 p.m. EDT (4:20 p.m. UTC), which led into a coronal mass ejection that sent a surge of solar material into space.

Solar flares can be disruptive to Earth communications and also cause auroras in the atmosphere. In this case, the M6 solar flare created “short-lived impacts to high frequency radio communications on the sunlit side of Earth … as a result,” wrote the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in a forecast July 8.

In this case, however, the coronal mass ejection (seen by the Solar Dynamics Observatory) is not expected to hit Earth. But with the Sun around its maximum of solar activity in the 11-year cycle, other eruptions could head into space in the coming days. M is considered a moderate flare and X the strongest kind.

“Solar activity is low, but the quiet is unlikely to persist,” wrote SpaceWeather.com in an update published today (July 10). “There are three sunspots with unstable magnetic fields capable of strong eruptions: AR2108, AR2109, AR2113. NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of M-flares and 15% chance of X-flares on July 10th.”

This flare caused a surge in shortwave activity that you can hear in this audio file, recorded by New Mexico amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft. “Radio bursts such as these are sparked by shock waves moving through the sun’s atmosphere,” SpaceWeather added. “Set in motion by flares, these shock waves excite plasma instabilitties that emit static-y radio waves.”

Ain’t Misbehavin’ – Turbulence, Solar Flares and Magnetism

In this image, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured an X1.2 class solar flare, peaking on May 15, 2013. Credit: NASA/SDO
In this image, the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) captured an X1.2 class solar flare, peaking on May 15, 2013. Credit: NASA/SDO

What’s more fun than something that misbehaves? When it comes to solar dynamics, we know a lot, but there are many things we don’t yet understand. For example, when a particle filled solar flare lashes out from the Sun, its magnetic field lines can do some pretty unexpected things – like split apart and then rapidly reconnect. According to the flux-freezing theorem, these magnetic lines should simply “flow away in lock-step” with the particles. They should stay intact, but they don’t. It’s not just a simple rule they break… it’s a law of physics.

What can explain it? In a paper published in the May 23 issue of “Nature”, an interdisciplinary research team led by a Johns Hopkins mathematical physicist may just have found a plausible explanation. According to the group, the underlying factor is turbulence – the “same sort of violent disorder that can jostle a passenger jet when it occurs in the atmosphere” – or the one your brother leaves behind after he’s eaten baked beans. By employing a well-organized and logically constructed computer modeling technique, the researchers were able to simulate what happens when magnetic field lines meet up with turbulence in a solar flare. Armed with this information, they were then able to state their case.

“The flux-freezing theorem often explains things beautifully,” said Gregory Eyink, a Department of Applied Mathematics and Statistics professor who was lead author of the “Nature” study. “But in other instances, it fails miserably. We wanted to figure out why this failure occurs.”

Just what is the flux-freezing theorem? Maybe you’ve heard of Hannes Alfvén. He was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). He’s the man responsible for explaining what we now know as Alfvén waves – a low-frequency travelling oscillation of the ions and the magnetic field in plasma. Well, some 70 years ago, he came up with the thought that magnetic lines of force sail along a locomotive fluid similar to snippets of thread flowing along a stream. It should be impossible for them to break and then join again. However, solar physicists have discovered this just isn’t the case when it comes to activity within a particularly violent solar flare. In their observations, they have determined that the magnetic field lines within these flares can stretch to the breaking point and then reconnect in a surprisingly quick amount of time – as little as 15 minutes. When this happens, it expels a copious amount of energy which, in turn, powers the flare.

“But the flux-freezing principle of modern plasma physics implies that this process in the solar corona should take a million years!” Eyink animatedly states. “A big problem in astrophysics is that no one could explain why flux-freezing works in some cases but not others.”

Of course, there has always been speculation that turbulence may have been the root source of the enigmatic behavior. Time for investigation? You bet. Eyink then joined forces – and minds – with other experts in astrophysics, mechanical engineering, data management and computer science, based at Johns Hopkins and other institutions. “By necessity, this was a highly collaborative effort,” Eyink said. “Everyone was contributing their expertise. No one person could have accomplished this.”

Gregory Eyink, professor of applied mathematics and statistics at Johns Hopkins. Photo by Nat Creamer.
Gregory Eyink, professor of applied mathematics and statistics at Johns Hopkins. Photo by Nat Creamer.
The next step was to create a computer simulation – a simulation which could duplicate the plasma state of solar flare activity and all the nuances the charged particles undergo during different conditions. “Our answer was very surprising,” stated Eyink. “Magnetic flux-freezing no longer holds true when the plasma becomes turbulent. Most physicists expected that flux-freezing would play an even larger role as the plasma became more highly conducting and more turbulent, but, as a matter of fact, it breaks down completely. In an even greater surprise, we found that the motion of the magnetic field lines becomes completely random. I do not mean ‘chaotic,’ but instead as unpredictable as quantum mechanics. Rather than flowing in an orderly, deterministic fashion, the magnetic field lines instead spread out like a roiling plume of smoke.”

Of course, other solar experts feel there may be alternative answers for this rule-breaking activity within solar flares, but as Eyink says, “I think we made a pretty compelling case that turbulence alone can account for field-line breaking.”

What is most exciting is the collaborative effort of the team members from such widely varied disciplines. It was a group effort which aided Eyink to come up with this new theory on the solar flare riddle. “We used ground-breaking new database methods, like those employed in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, combined with high-performance computing techniques and original mathematical developments,” he said. “The work required a perfect marriage of physics, mathematics and computer science to develop a fundamentally new approach to performing research with very large datasets.”

In conclusion, Eyink noted this type of research work may very well give us a better understanding of solar flares and coronal mass ejections. As we know, this type of dangerous “space weather” can be harmful to astronauts, disrupt communications satellites, and even be responsible for the shut-down of electrical power grids on Earth. And you know what that means… no satellite TV and no power to watch it by. But, that’s O.K.

“I don’t stay out late. Don’t care to go. I’m home about eight… Just me and my radio. Ain’t misbehavin’.. Savin’ my love for you.”

Original Story Source: Johns Hopkins University News Release.

Still Concerned About 2012?

Don’t be.

Don Yeomans, senior research scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, was kind enough to address some common questions regarding 2012, such as the much-misunderstood Mayan “long-count” calendar, Nibiru, pole-reversal and other such purported “doomsday” devices. Check it out.

Still set on the world ending come Dec. 21?

Back off, man. Don’s a scientist.