Solar flares could create auroras over northern U.S.

[Joanne98]

Source: USA Today

The sun has unleashed its most powerful solar flare in four years, sending a torrent of charged particles that could bring auroras as far south as Washington, D.C., scientists say.


This blowup of an extreme ultraviolent wavelength image taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the flaring region. Much of the vertical line in the image is caused by the bright flash overwhelming the observatory's imager.CAPTIONBy NASAEarth-bound flares — coronal mass ejections, in non-layman's terms — began erupting Sunday, with the biggest flare since December 2006 recorded Tuesday, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory reports. Though such magnetic storms can affect communications and power grids (shortwave disruptions were reported today in southern China), no serious problems are anticipated, because the flare isn't expected to hit Earth head on.

Here's time-lapse video of the big blast.

The U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center forecasts a 30% chance of auroras as far south as the nation's capital, though the full moon tonight will make the reddish light quite difficult to see, National Geographic says. But skywatchers in the United Kingdom may see the more spectacular aurora borealis, the Northern Lights, over the next few nights.



Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/02/solar-flares-could-create-auroras-over-northern-us/1

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Here's a cool video of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nh6xmY3Np5Q

[roamer65]

1. In 1859, there was one that was so powerful that...

that telegraph traffic was able to be run without batteries or simply not at all. We're long overdue and imagine such a solar superstorm and today's computer systems...yikes.

[sofa king]

3. They appeared at the Battle of Fredericksburg (VA) in December, 1862.

Virtually none of the southern soldiers had ever seen or heard of such a thing, while Union soldiers cursed it because they were illuminating the hillside on which thousands of men, many wounded, were trapped within range of Confederate rifles. The U.S. press, however, took it as a good omen from an otherwise unmitigated disaster. And it was, sort of.

[Arctic Dave]

2. Enjoy the show if you get the chance.

The really are impressive.

[gauguin57]

4. If anyone sees auroras over the northern half of the U.S., please post!

The last time I saw auroras here in Pennsylvania, it was because a progressive message board on Salon's Table Talk (where I got my progressive juice before Democratic Underground) called my attention to it.

[caraher]

5. Not much showing yet in the lower 48 on the forecast sites

A simple map

More details.

[Odin2005]

6. Nothing in Fargo.

:-(