The Sun ejects material into the solar wind - a stream of electrically charged and magnetic particles. The most violent events are known a Coronal Mass Ejections. The Solar Wind streams past the Earth, Jupiter and into the distant Solar System. When it encounters the Earth it can cause aurorae and magnetic storms. Not all Coronal Mass Ejections trigger auroras. It all depends on the orientation of tangled magnetic fields within the electrified cloud of gas.
This page lists abnormal activity. For more detailed information visit Spaceweather.com from where the following information has been derived.
Space Weather News for Nov. 20, 2003
A coronal mass ejection swept past Earth during the early hours of Nov.
20th and sparked bright auroras over northern parts of the United States.
At the time of this writing (1600 UT or 11:00 a.m. EST) a strong
geomagnetic storm is in progress. The interplanetary magnetic field near
Earth has tilted sharply south--a condition which promotes geomagnetic
activity.
The source of this space weather is sunspot 484--one of the trio of big
sunspots that caused intense solar storms last month. Indeed all three of
those active regions are back on the Earth-facing side of the sun, so more
solar activity is possible in the days ahead.
Space Weather News for Nov. 5, 2003
Giant sunspot 486 unleashed another intense solar flare on Nov. 4th (1950
UT), and this one could be historic. The blast saturated X-ray sensors
onboard GOES satellites. The last time this happened, in April 2001, the
flare that saturated the sensors was classified as an X20--the biggest
ever recorded at the time. Yesterday's flare appears to have been even
stronger.
Because sunspot 486 is near the Sun's western limb, the blast was not directed much toward Earth. Nevertheless, our planet's magnetic field might be hit by a coronal mass ejection on Nov. 5th or 6th. The impact will be glancing, but even a glancing blow from such a powerful explosion could stir geomagnetic storms.
Space Weather News for Nov. 2, 2003
Another remarkable solar flare has erupted from giant sunspot 486--an
X8-class blast at 1725 UT on Nov. 2nd. Because the sunspot is nearing the
sun's western limb, this explosion was not aimed squarely at Earth. Even
so, a coronal mass ejection (CME) is heading our way. Auroras could appear
on Nov. 3rd or 4th when the fast-moving cloud delivers a glancing blow to
Earth's magnetic field.
Space Weather News for Oct. 30, 2003
A severe geomagnetic storm is in progress on Oct. 30th. It began at
approximately 1700 UT when a coronal mass ejection (CME) struck our
planet's magnetic field--the second such impact in as many days. The CME
was hurled toward Earth yesterday by an X10-class explosion from giant
sunspot 486.
Space Weather News for Oct. 28, 2003
One of the most powerful solar flares ever recorded erupted this morning
near giant sunspot 486. The explosion hurled a coronal mass ejection
(CME) directly toward Earth.
Space Weather News for Oct. 27, 2003
Giant sunspots 484 and 486 remain visible on the Sun, posing a continued
threat for X-class solar explosions. Indeed, on Sunday, Oct. 26th, there
were two such blasts--one from each sunspot. The explosions hurled coronal
mass ejections (CMEs) into space and somewhat toward Earth.
Space Weather News for Oct. 22, 2003
Sunspot 484, which first appeared this past weekend, has grown into one of
the biggest sunspots in years. Now about the size of the planet Jupiter,
it's easy to see. But never look directly at the Sun!
Meanwhile, say forecasters, another big sunspot could soon appear near the
sun's southeastern limb. The active region is not yet directly visible,
but the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) has seen material being
blasted over the Sun's limb from the approaching spot.
Although no major electrical problems have yet resulted from the current series of solar flares bombarding the Earth, University of Iowa Professor and Space Physicist Don Gurnett, recently used NASA's Cassini spacecraft to record the sound of one of the largest solar flares seen in decades as it moved outward from the sun.
The radio wave burst, resembling the clicking of an old-fashioned telegraph machine followed by the rush of a jet engine, was recorded Tuesday, Oct. 28, by Cassini while on its way to a July 1, 2004, encounter with Saturn and its moons and rings. Gurnett noted that the radio waves -- moving at the speed of light -- took just 69 minutes to reach the spacecraft, currently some 8.7 AU distant from the Earth. (One AU, or astronomical unit, is the distance from the Earth to the sun -- about 93 million miles.)
"This is one of the biggest events of its kind ever seen," said Gurnett, a veteran of more than 25 major spacecraft projects, including the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 flights to the outer planets, the Galileo mission to Jupiter, and the Cassini mission to Saturn. The event, described as a "type III" radio burst, was detected using the 86-pound Cassini radio and plasma wave instrument, largely built at the UI and for which Gurnett serves as principal investigator. The sound can be heard on-line by visiting Gurnett's web site.
"The sound is produced by electrons moving out from the solar flare, beginning at a high frequency before dropping to a lower frequency," Gurnett said. Scientists monitoring the solar flare said that the massive cloud -- composed of billions of tons of electrically charged particles -- reached the Earth on Thursday, Oct. 29, but no major power outages were reported.
Gurnett is also part of a NASA-funded, Italian-U.S. project called MARSIS (Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding) to search for underground water on Mars, a project whose radar instrument is aboard the European Space Agency's (ESA) Mars Express spacecraft. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, Gurnett has seen his 40 years of collected space sounds serve as the inspiration for the NASA-commissioned and critically acclaimed music and visual composition "Sun Rings," composed by Terry Riley and performed around the world by the famed Kronos Quartet.
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