The sun, she is moody lately. After sputtering on Sunday, she went and spat out the biggest solar flare of the year yesterday. And though it will likely not make a direct hit on our planet, the sudden burst of energy from the center of our solar system could still mess things up over the next day or two. On the plus side? "Aurora may be seen as low as New York to Wisconsin to Washington state," a space weather alert tells us. Wait, so the future is now?
Well, if you live a bit north of the city, kind of. The extra aurora effects should be visible starting late tonight but probably won't make it to the five boroughs. Still, if it makes any NYC dwellers feel better the full moon will probably make it harder to see. So let's all stare at a gorgeous video of the sun for a moment!
Last night's flare—"the sun’s version of Super Tuesday," according to Joe Kunches, a scientist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder—is the second largest of this solar cycleM, which started in early 2007. According to scientists it "registered as class X5.4, besting the class X1.3 flare hurled out Sunday. It generated a strong (S3 rated) solar radiation storm in the Earth’s upper atmosphere that’s still ongoing."
Strong solar activity can cause real problems here on the ground (think: GPS glitches, busted power grid equipment) but nobody is jumping to predict what exactly this flare will do. Doing so is "like predicting 5 inches of rain," Kunches told the Washington Post. "We know it’s going to fall, but the real question is how fast will it fall? For the power grid, they want to know how fast the Earth’s magnetic field is going to change. Unfortunately we just don’t have ability to give them that much information." In the meantime, it should pose no threat to you or your body—so put the tinfoil away.
After it hits this evening the solar storm and all it brings with it should be with us through Friday morning, though it may well be followed by more activity. Apparently "another set of active sunspots is ready to aim at Earth right after this."
