Solar Flare Update
The biggest solar flare in four years has sent charged particles hurtling towards Earth. ABC News says:
The radiation from Monday’s flare, known as a Coronal Mass Ejection, should pass the Earth today, Friday and Saturday. The charged particles will speed by at some 560 miles per second.
…What makes this storm interesting, said Joe Kunches of the Space Weather Prediction Center, is that there were actually three flares in succession — and radiation from the last and biggest of them is travelling faster than the particles from the first two.
“What’s the effect of the triple punch?” said Kunches. “Stay tuned.” Outbursts such as the current one are actually quite common, scientists say. But modern technology can be sensitive to solar storms; scientists say satellites, power grids and communications networks can suffer outages.
The worst that we can expect would be pagers not working, some minor power blackouts, planes on polar routes changing course, and and some auroras to view. Hopefully we get some minor damage that might prompt governments to be better prepared for the big one that is potentially arriving in 2012.
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