Solar Activity Watch 2012

Here we go, a master thread for Solar Activity for the year the Mayan Calendar ends, 2012.
Thanks to all who kept the past threads up-to-date.

With all of the recent solar activity taking place, the sun approaching solar maximum, and how many threads keep popping up on each event, I thought it would be prudent to have a single thread, especially for all of the avid sun watcher!

www.abovetopsecret.com...

It looks like this could be a busy year in 2012, building to a peak in 2013:
www.space.com...
Another informative source:
www.spaceweather.com...

Solar Activity Watch 2011

Solar Activity Watch 2010

Sun Watch Thread!!! (2009)

edit on Sun Dec 25 2011 by DontTreadOnMe because: (no reason given)

reply to post by DontTreadOnMe


Great stuff. Looking forward to some serious activity on this thread next year as we whistle along towards the Solar Max.

My blog is not very well maintained as I am too busy with earthquakes but you will find some good links here including the one I carry on my signature all the time which is really good as it shows the magnetic polarity of the sunspots. (Solar Activity Report)

The other one, in my links, and an essential is Beyond Landscheidt: Laymans Sunspot Count which I can seriously recommend as an excellent source of the 'real' sunspot count.

Great idea!

A single thread on solar activity will be definately active as the sun will surely will. In my opinion the sun is the most potential threat for human race and the thing is we cannot do anything about it.

I will say for now on this Christmas day, Galarneau ( a french name for the sun ) is wonderful up high and give us a beautiful day for playing outside and enjoying life with family and friends...

At the end.. is it not the reason why we are on this planet?

All the best for 2012 ATSers!

Kudos for getting this thread up and going for next year.

It's gonna be a blast lol!

I'm "all fired up" for this thread.
Here are some links to sites you may find useful. I'm sure many of you are familiar with them, but some may not be...

www.solarham.com...
solarimg.org...
sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov...
sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov...
www.spaceweather.com...

reply to post by DontTreadOnMe


This sounds exactly like the plot of the 2012 movie! I wouldn't be surprised if the sun just ejected a massive solar flare and it cooked up the earth, especially when scientists think the peak activity of solar flares will be around the end of 2012 and early 2013. All I know is that I will do my best to make 2012 a great year for myself!

the flares will peak when human consciousness awakens, than we are all gonna die...again. happy holidays

reply to post by 1beerplease


Like we did in 2000-2001 eh?

Give me a break!

reply to post by DontTreadOnMe


Well this one has a lot of missing pieces so far. We crashed a probe into the sun to get data on the volume of energy under its surface. That got locked away quick.

Now they announced there is an energy mapping for underneath the surface and that got swept under the rug.

They announced proof positive from ice cores in several different sheets..... the sun kills off most species every 12,000 years and of course its time again...

reply to post by DontTreadOnMe


We shall be seeing some pretty major solar activity this year that will directly effect the consciousness of earth and all it's people. I applaud you for making the thread and linking the activity with the end of the Mayan calendar, for as I am coming to understand the nature of all of these things, it seems very obvious to me that most ancient cultures are telling us the same things, they just get lost in translation.

Cheers for the thread

This is suppose to be the year of years for solar activity so I imagine this will be quite the popular thread and now I know where to turn to get the latest news on all of it, so thanks. Anyways, hope all of you keep your eyes to the skys...

Click here for more information.

Sorry, nothing's going to happen. Nothing of anything significance anyhow (i.e. Carrington Event).

I'll definitely keep this thread in mind as the year progresses. I guess at the start I'll say I hope we're all sitting here this time next year getting a good laugh out of the year nothing happened as people feared it may.

This is ATS however, not the optimists club. Just for fun I'll say I predict at least 1 X-20 or above to generate a whopper of a Geo-storm back home here. At least 1 of them by Christmas of next year...and 50/50 chance for a Carrington Event. The bunny said it first.

reply to post by Chadwickus


I love how you are the most cynical/off topic poster on here, congrats on maintaing that status.

You ARE the grumpy old man, congrats on that!!!

www.dailymail.co.uk...
I saw this this morning and it said the effects would be minor but then I saw another report that said it would be something more. Thanks for this thread, I am quite fascinated by solar flares and their affects.

A history of the Sun and Humanity,
Off site content
"Space weather has a long history because it spans the life of the sun and earth and all
the significant changes that have occurred between these bodies over the course of
billions of years.

13.4 billion years - Universe formed with hydrogen and helium: the basic elements of the sun
12.5 billion years - Formation of Milky Way nearly completed: Heavy elements created
8.0 billion years - Major episode of star formation in solar neighborhood
6.8 billion years - The star Alpha Centauri is formed
4.9 billion years - Oldest meteorite forms
4.58 billion years - Most consistent age for formation of sun
4.54 billion years - Age of Earth
4.4 billion years - Sun stabilizes as a star with only 70% current brightness
3.5 billion years - Earth day is 15 hours long
3.0 billion years - Oldest record of Earth's magnetic field
3.0 billion years - Sun grows in brightness to 80% of current level.
2.5 billion years - Earth's atmosphere contains oxygen
2.0 billion years - Solar luminosity is now 85% of current level.
1.0 billion years - First fossil evidence for rainfall.
900 million years - Length of day is now 18 hours long.
750 million years - Large ice packs cover earth nearly to equator
543 million years - Cambrian Explosion of complex organisms.
500 million years - Solar luminosity only 6% less than today.
450 million years - Ordovician Extinction
400 million years -Devonian Extinction
360 million years - Air-breathing fish leave water, become first land animals.
320 million years - First ancestors to mammals appear
300 million years - Solar luminosity only 3% less than today.
250 million years - Permian Mass extinction
125 million years - Oldest known flowering plants
110 million years - First birds appear
100 million years -Earth's magnetic field three times stronger than today
65 million years - Cretaceous Dinosaur Extinction
60 million years - Primitive primates appear
55 million years - Major global warming episode
27 million years - Primitive apes emerge
6 million years - Great Apes and Hominids 'split' genetically
2 million years - Tool-making humanoid ancestors emerge
750,000 years - End of last magnetic reversal
500,000 years - First evidence of fire usage
400,000 years - First use of paint by human ancestors
150,000 years - Neanderthal's appear
130,000 years - Beginning of Eemian Interglacial age
100,000 years - Modern humans appear
77,000 years - Oldest cave art appears in South Africa
50,000 years - Major change in human behavior, art, tools
45,000 years - Largest animals disappear from human habitats
28,000 years - Neanderthal's disappear 25,000 years - Elaborate burial customs appear
20,000 years - Start of last Ice Age
17,000 years - Oldest star map created on cave wall.
12,000 years - Ice Age ends. Earth grows warmer.
10,000 years - Humans colonize North America. Large mammals vanish.
8,000 BC - Oldest city, Jericho, has 2000 inhabitants
7,000 BC - Fired pottery invented
5,600 BC - The Black Sea Flood
4,236 BC - Egyptian Calendar begins.
3,700 BC - Megalithic stone graves appear in Denmark.
3,500 BC - First Sumerian writing appears.
3,400 BC - Invention of the wheel.
3,100 BC - First work on Stonehenge begins
2,700 BC - First pyramids built in Egypt.
2,500 BC - Development of Chinese characters
2,357 BC - Chinese record mention the Pleiades star cluster.
2,134 BC - Chinese astrologers beheaded because they failed to predict a solar eclipse
2,000 BC - Chinese report aurora sightings
1,600 BC - Sun disk and star map created in Germany
1,500 BC - Sighting of first supernova by ancient Chinese
1,375 BC - First solar eclipse recorded in Babylon.
1,111 BC - First naked-eye solar flares possibly sighted by Chinese
800 BC - First sunspots sighted by Chinese
763 BC - Solar eclipse mentioned in Old Testament
467 BC - Anaxagoras possibly sees a sunspot.
431 BC - Thucydides reports seeing stars during total solar eclipse
239 BC - Chinese first to record Halley's Comet
37 AD - Julius Caesar sends troops to pursue an 'aurora' seen in the north.
93 AD - Description of aurora as 'meteors' in Scotland
500 AD - First report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
513 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
786 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
807 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
887 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
925 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
968 AD - First report of solar corona seed during total solar eclipse
1054 AD - Crab Supernova seen by Chineese
1118 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
1128 AD - First sketch of sunspot sighted in England
1138 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
1185 AD - First sighting of solar prominence by Russian observers
1235 AD - North England auroral sighting mentioned in Holinshed's Chronicle "

source( www.solarstorms.org...

off site content,
"1250 AD - Mention of aurora in Norse chronicle 'Kings Mirror'
1290 AD - Wolf Sunspot minimum and vanishing of aurora
1381 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
1436 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
1440 AD - Sporer Sunspot Minimum
1600 AD - William Gilbert describes earth magnetism in 'De Magnete'
1609 AD - Galileo uses telescope to study solar surface - sees spots.
1619 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
1621 AD - Pierre Gassendi first uses the term 'Aurora Borealis' 1624 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
1638 AD - Report of naked-eye sunspot by Chinese
1645 AD - Maunder Sunspot Minimum starts
1715 AD - Earliest sketch of solar corona
1716 AD - Dramatic aurora seen in England
1722 AD - George Graham discovers that compass needle always in motion.
1726 AD - De Mairan is first to measure auroral heights.
1740 AD - Anders Celcius and Olof Hoiter discover magnetic storms
1770 AD - J. Wilcke discovers that aurora aligned with magnetic field of Earth,
1777 AD - Mairan proposes aurora caused by earth entering Zodiacal light
1833 AD- John Ross proposes aurora are light reflected from polar ice and snow
1848 AD - Auroral 'earth currents' disrupt telegraph lines worldwide
1851 AD - Heinreich Schwabe discovers the 11-year sunspot cycle
1856 AD - Edward Sabine discovers aurora connected to sunspot cycle
1856 AD -Dennison Olmstead concludes that aurora are caused by events external to earth.
1859 AD- Visible solar flare sighted by Carrington and Hodgson.
1860 AD - Elias Loomis maps out the auroral oval zone on earth.
1860 AD - Coronal Mass Ejection first spotted during a total solar eclipse
1867 AD - Anders Angstrom uses spectroscope to study aurora
1872 AD - Great Aurora seen in India, Cuba, Paris..
1879 AD - George Ellis offers first space weather forecast
1881 AD - Prof. De La Rue creates artificial aurora in a vacuum tube.
1882 AD - Henry Draper studies with spectroscope. Spectrum not from incandescent gas.
1882 AD - Balfour Stewart proposes that upper atmosphere is location for auroral currents.
1885 AD - Sophus Tromhole first to photograph aurora
1889 AD - Veeder discovers that major aurora can reoccur every 27-days
1892 AD - George Ellery Hale invents the spectroheliograph to study solar flares.
18xx AD - Stormer photographs aurora and determines heights of 12,000.
1894 AD - Great Aurora
1898 AD - Kristian Berkelund proposes electrical rays from sun cause aurora
1902 AD - Kennelly and Heavyside propose 'ionosphere' layer
1908 AD- George Ellery Hale detects intense magnetic fields near sunspots
1908 AD - Great Aurora
1909 AD - Birkeland creates a Terella to mimic aurora
1915 AD - Wireless outage in Northern Europe influences World War I
1918 AD - Sydney Chapman describe magnetic field of sun and earth as a system.
1919 AD - Whistlers heard for first time in World War I.
1920 AD - Great Aurora
1921 AD - Major aurora seen world-wide.
1923 AD - Babcock and McLennan identify auroral 'green' light as an oxygen line.
1925 AD - Beginning of studies of short-wave disruptions
1925 AD - Appleton and Barnett detect the ionosphere layer
1926 AD - Great Aurora
1934 AD - Hale publishes detailed study of solar flares and magnetic disturbances
1937 AD - The term 'solar flare' appears for the first time in Washington Post newspaper.
1938 AD - Great Aurora
193x AD - Bartels devises a method for cataloging magnetic storms.
1939 AD - J. Dellenger describes how solar flares cause short-wave radio outages.
1939 AD - Proton aurora discovered.
1940 AD - Easter Day shortwave disruption affects millions of phone calls.
1941 AD - Major shortwave disruptions during World War II activities. 1943 AD - Sunspots hamper radio transmission of Allied invasion of Italy on September 3.
1942 AD - S.E. Forbush detects 'GLE' radiation burst from a solar flare.
1947 AD - World-wide radio blackout. Airlines affected in Ireland
1947 AD - Giovanelli proposes that solar flares related to solar magnetic changes.
1949 AD - Reber detects radio burst before flare is detected by telescopes.
1951 AD - L. Biermann discovers solar wind using comet tails
1953 AD - Dungey proposes that flares caused by opposing magnetic fields on the sun.
1956 AD - P. A. Sweet proposes flares originate in magnetic activity above sunspots.
1957 AD - Waldmeier discovers coronal holes
1957 AD - Hannes Alfven proposes that the solar wind was magnetized.
1957 AD - World-wide radio fadeout lasts several hours on April 16th.
1958 AD - Van Allen Belts discovered by Explorer I satellite.
1958 AD - Severny proposes magnetic shock wave theory of flares.
1958 AD - AD Eugene Parker predicts solar wind should exist
1959 AD - Shortwave blackout over North Atlantic on March 29th.
1959 AD - Mariner 2 spacecraft detects the solar wind"

source( www.solarstorms.org...