Giant sunspot to knock out satellites this week

teamtricky · Post by **teamtricky** » 14 September 05 1:24 pm

A SUNSPOT that at its peak has been five times larger than Earth is expected to release fresh solar flares this week that could cripple satellites and black out radio communications.

Sunspot 798 has fired seven enormous eruptions of radiation at Earth since September 7, including one monstrous flare last Wednesday, the fourth-largest on record.

While the sunspot has since shrunk a little, it is rotating across the Sun's surface so as to line up with Earth, meaning any activity this week is more likely to strike the planet head-on than deliver a glancing blow.

Astronomers said there was a 75 per cent chance of more flares within days, raising the possibility of serious disruptions to telecommunications. There is also a small risk from streams of charged particles, known as a coronal mass ejection, which follow a solar flare event. The particles linked with last Wednesday's eruption arrived at the weekend, causing spectacular displays of the aurora borealis.

The US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration describes solar activity as at "very high levels", and has already reported some problems on Earth as a result.

The largest flare on record, in November 2003, disabled satellites and an instrument aboard a Mars-bound spacecraft. A smaller flare that hit Earth head-on in 1989 knocked out the electricity supply in the Canadian state of Quebec.

Sunspots are cooler and darker patches on the sun's surface caused by magnetic fields shaped like coiled tubes that rise from the interior of the star. These loops, which contain charged particles known as plasma, can be disrupted by the surface pressures of the sun and spew their contents outwards.

When the plasma particles strike the magnetic field around Earth, they pull it out of shape, leading to geomagnetic storms that cause interference with electrical equipment, particularly transformers, generators and radio networks.

From The Times of London in The Australian

Geof · Post by **Geof** » 14 September 05 10:44 pm

Ok time to get out the valve GPSr and deploy the non solid state statilites

Zytheran · Post by **Zytheran** » 14 September 05 10:58 pm

Now the wooses can put away their GPS's and do some real caching using just a map and trip log.

GammaPiSigma · Post by **GammaPiSigma** » 15 September 05 9:48 am

I'm going to get one of these babies.
<P>
Mike.

Effrem · Post by **Effrem** » 15 September 05 9:56 am

Zytheran wrote:Now the wooses can put away their GPS's and do some real caching using just a map and trip log.

Wadda ya talking about!???

Maps are for wooses.

Just stick a blindfold on and wander round until ya find it.

Damian

The Garner Family · Post by **The Garner Family** » 15 September 05 10:47 am

Effrem wrote: Wadda ya talking about!???

Maps are for wooses.

Just stick a blindfold on and wander round until ya find it.

Yeah! Blind geocaching... we had a thread on that last year!

Zytheran · Post by **Zytheran** » 16 September 05 12:33 am

The map is only to find a place to park the car...
Like, a 1:50000 topo map is *really* going to help you find a cache...not