A giant magnetic explosion on the sun 9/10/2014 (Earth appears to be in the bull’s-eye)

originally posted by: minkmouse

originally posted by: new_here
a reply to: trontech

Hey thanks, trontech.
I don't know how the speed of those things operate either.
I still have electricity as we speak, so either it's not here yet, or it's being gentle on us.

You're going to have power all night, trust me.

Oh goodie-- wait... when my cat looks at me like your avatar, I never do. Trust it.

a reply to: new_here
They won't know that until they can tell how fast it's traveling through space towards us. As an example; If its going 3750 km/s then its 11 hours from the time it happened which would make it hitting now on the daylight side.

According to a different source:

So while the power grid may see fluctuations because the storm will cause changes in Earth's magnetic field, it won't knock power systems off line, Berger said. It may cause slight disturbances in satellites and radio transmissions but nothing major.
"We're not scared of this one," Berger said.
The storm is moving medium fast, about 2.5 million miles per hour, meaning the soonest it could arrive is early Friday. But it could be later, Berger said.

hosted.ap.org...

Looks like it will be a waiting game...but they're not scared....it's all under control.

This is nothing... lol
What a real one x15 can do en.wikipedia.org...

The geomagnetic storm causing this event was itself the result of a coronal mass ejection on March 9, 1989.[1] A few days before, on March 6, a very large X15-class solar flare also occurred.[2] Three and a half days later, at 2:44 am EST on March 13, a severe geomagnetic storm struck Earth.[3][4] The storm began on Earth with extremely intense auroras at the poles. The aurora could be seen as far south as Texas and Florida.

The variations in the earth's magnetic field also tripped circuit breakers on Hydro-Québec's power grid. The utility's very long transmission lines and the fact that most of Quebec sits on a large rock shield prevented current flowing through the earth, finding a less resistant path along the 735 kV power lines.[8]

The James Bay network went offline in less than 90 seconds, giving Quebec its second massive blackout in 11 months.[9] The power failure lasted nine hours and forced the company to implement various mitigation strategies, including raising the trip level, installing series compensation on ultra high voltage lines and upgrading various monitoring and operational procedures. Other utilities in North America and Northern Europe and elsewhere implemented programs to reduce the risks associated with geomagnetically induced currents.[8]

a reply to: diggindirt
Yeah, X1.6 is not that bad.

Will this affect any of the NEO's scheduled to be arriving about the same time?

originally posted by: trontech
a reply to: new_here
They won't know that until they can tell how fast it's traveling through space towards us. As an example; If its going 3750 km/s then its 11 hours from the time it happened which would make it hitting now on the daylight side.

Ok, snagged this from the post beneath yours, lol...

...about 2.5 million miles per hour, meaning the soonest it could arrive is early Friday. But it could be later, Berger said.

I guess the darn thing could speed up or slow down, otherwise they'd be more precise about its ETA? It sounds rather vague with "as early as" and "could be later." I honestly don't know, but would have guessed they'd be able to pin it down to at least a 2-hour window or something.

originally posted by: trontech
a reply to: new_here
It will only affect the daylight side of the earth when it does hit.

Actually not. It is the night side of Earth which is most affected by CMEs. The magnetosphere directs the flow of charged particles around to its "tail" (on the night side). In the tail a phenomenon known as magnetic reconnection occurs, sort of like an electrical short circuit but different. This reconnection creates what is called a substorm. The sub storm sends the charged particles back toward the Earth. The stream of charged particles creates fluctuating magnetic fields which cause the Earth's magnetic field to "wiggle". That wiggling is what is known as a geomagnetic storm. Since a CME can persist for more than 24 hours, every part of Earth has a chance to be affected. At higher latitudes that is.

The two primary factors which determine how intense the storming produced by a CME is, are the density of the CME and its magnetic orientation. The density can be determined pretty well by observing spacecraft well before it gets here. The magnetic orientation, not until the CME arrives at the ACE satellite (about 1 million miles sunward of us). If the CME has a north Bz orientation it won't produce much storming, even if it's pretty strong. It's when it takes a strong south turn that things can get exciting.

If you're interested you can keep an eye on the data from ACE. The Bz component is on the upper graph. By watching the speed and density graphs, you can see when the CME arrives. As yet, not a thing.
www.swpc.noaa.gov...

FYI there's an ongoing thread on this solar cme event already in progress, please feel free to add your thoughts and comments here: ThreadInProgress

thanks, this thread is now closed.