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Solar Cycle 24

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Originally posted by: bignateyk
Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
I remember that during the late 80s and early-to-mid 90s I could see many sunspots with the naked eye, at sunrise, from my kitchen window... fascinating!
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I think that was just damage to your eyes from staring at the sun every morning.
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You wish!

<------ amateur astronomer
 
Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
Originally posted by: bignateyk
Originally posted by: AnitaPeterson
I remember that during the late 80s and early-to-mid 90s I could see many sunspots with the naked eye, at sunrise, from my kitchen window... fascinating!
Click to expand...

I think that was just damage to your eyes from staring at the sun every morning.
Click to expand...

You wish!

<------ amateur astronomer
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Sunspots aren't dark. They're just not slightly different brightness from the rest of the sun. You didn't see them, but you probably damaged your eyes by looking at the sun
 
Originally posted by: Jeff7
Originally posted by: rpanic
Maybe a good time to take a trip to see the Aurora Borealis.
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If the solar activity is strong enough, you may not have to travel anywhere to see them. They've had them at least as close to the equator as Hawaii.
Normally, the solar wind only gets through at the poles, where the magnetic field is weakest. But if we get a sufficiently strong coronal mass ejection coming this way, it can compress Earth's magnetic field down enough that the charged particles in the ejection are able to interact with the upper atmosphere.

Originally posted by: everman
I'm going to invest in a sun tan lotion company.
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Or some good surge suppressors. The power grid can act like a giant inductive antenna - when the magnetic field shifts, this can induce huge currents in the grid.
And maybe expect communications outages - if we get hit by a big enough blast, there's the potential to lose some satellites.
There was some huge flare in late 2003, and it actually shut down and damage some probes orbiting Mars - Mars Odyssey, Mars Express, and Mars Global Surveyor were all affected in some way. Cassini, out a Saturn, also was able to measure it.

And of course, this kind of activity is just one more pleasantry awaiting anyone who tries to venture to Mars - Mars has no uniform magnetic field, just a very weak, oddly distributed one. Coronal mass ejections would be able to impact the surface, and any human explorers, quite easily.
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As long as it doesn't knock out any of the Directv satellites I'm happy. 😀
 
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