The Entrance of Solar Cycle 24
A solar wind stream is buffeting Earth’s magnetic field and causing high-latitude geomagnetic storms. Calvin Hall sends this snapshot from Palmer, Alaska. (Spaceweather.com)
“It may be that our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create him” ~ Arthur C. Clarke
With 943 potentially hazardous asteroids to cause us worry, it looks as if we have also three sunspots in the neighborhood at the end of March—987, 988, and 999. Presently, a solar wind streaming from the developing coronal hole may possibly reach Earth on March 28 [Friday] or March 29 [Saturday].
Also, a magnetic map was made by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory that showed north and south magnetic poles of the sunspots, oriented according to patterns of Solar Cycle 23, with Cycle 24 spots reversing. And both cycles are active at the same time—with 24 beginning, yet 23 has not quite ended. What exactly does any of this mean, anyway?
We know it is normal, at least according to SpaceWeather.com, even though NOAA is forecasting a 50% chance of more M-flares within the next 24 hours of this reading, so let us look at things a little more in detail. The most influential concerned issue to most people involves the questions, “is it going to hit Earth” and “what happens to Earth then?” To put in quite simply, a “solar flare occurs when magnetic energy that has built up in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released”.
When this happens, radiation is sent out across the entire electromagnetic spectrum—long wavelength radio waves, optical emissions of X-rays, in addition to short wavelength gamma rays. According to NASA, the energy released at this time is similar to millions of 100-megaton hydrogen bombs all going off at once. A large flare’s energy is ten million times greater than the energy released from a volcanic explosion, but less than one-tenth of the total energy delivered from the sun every second.
The frequency of flares coincides with the Sun’s eleven-year cycle. When it is set a a minimum, the active regions are rare, small, with few solar flares. As the Sun approaches its maximum part of the cycle, everything will increase and become larger. With the next cycle previously predicted for 2011, the cycle actually began its cycle of March this year with an increase in technology being affected more and more by the solar flares.
This entry was posted on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 12:27 am and is filed under Mars News, Public Relations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
