Posted 08.09.2011 at 5:03 pm
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X6.9 Solar Flare, August 9, 2011
NASA/SDO
It’s been a busy few days on the surface of the sun. A handful of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) last week sparked concerns of power grid and communications disruptions. And then this morning at 3:48 a.m. EDT, our local star fired off an X6.9 solar flare more powerful than any seen in years.
Captured above and below by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory and measured by the NOAA GOES satellite, this morning’s solar outburst was definitely the strongest of the current sun cycle. It measured X6.9, a full three times stronger than the previous frontrunner of this cycle, an X2.2 measured back in February.
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Technology, Clay Dillow, coronal mass ejections, goes satellite, nasa, SDO, solar flares, Space, VideoRefresher: the solar flare rating scale works sort of like the Richter scale, but with the added confusion of letters. There are five classes in order of ascending strength: A, B, C, M and X. Class A and Class B are small enough to be inconsequential for our purposes (A-class flares are near background levels of solar activity). Class C covers small flares that don’t really affect earth, M-class denotes medium flares (minimal radio blackout, some danger to astronauts) and X designates the largest. Like the Richter scale, each letter class represents a 10-fold increase in energy output over the class before, and within each letter class there is a finer scale ranging from 1 to 9 for distinction among flares of the same class.
Of course, we can’t put an upper limit on the sun’s power, so X-class flares can go beyond the number 9--far beyond actually. The most powerful ever measured back in 2003 topped out at X28, and that wasn’t even an accurate measurement. That’s simply where the measurement was at the sensors taking the reading were overloaded and stopped working.
[NASA]
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Inmagine the theme song to jaws...... ok got in you mind. Now inmagine 1 year plus building up to the date December 21, 2012. (Ok, enough said.)
@BubbaGump
Haha, that would be fun.
(Meanwhile, duun duuun.... duuun duuun....)
".......On August 9, 2011 at 3:48 a.m. EDT, the sun emitted an Earth-directed X6.9 flare, as measured by the NOAA GOES satellite. These gigantic bursts of radiation cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to harm humans on the ground, however they can disrupt the atmosphere and disrupt GPS and communications signals. In this case, it appears the flare is strong enough to potentially cause some radio communication blackouts. It also produced increased solar energetic proton radiation -- enough to affect humans in space if they do not protect themselves......" Science Digest.
The flare was not "Earth-directed", as claimed by Science Digest.
.... so the Egyptian sun GOD RA is not trying to kick the ass of the humans this day. AH! Life is good.
With the solar maximum next year we can probably expect an eventfull year, lets consider ourselves lucky it was released away from the earth.