Showing posts with label Solar Wind. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Solar Wind. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 04, 2015

There's a Hole in The Sun – Geomagnetic Storms Imminent!

There's a Hole in The Sun – Geomagnetic Storms Imminent

By Brian K Sullivan
www.bloomberg.com
11-3-15

     Get ready for a light show.

The sun’s about to spit charged particles our way. And that solar wind of protons and electrons will interact with the Earth’s magnetic field to light up the skies with a dazzling display of color through Wednesday.

The solar wind coming out of a hole on the sun will almost certainly spark an aurora that may be seen by millions of people. The hole contains less material than other parts of the sun, allowing the wind to flow outward much faster than normal -- “more than two and a half times” faster, according to Robert Rutledge, a forecaster at the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

People across large parts of Asia, Europe and North America should be able to catch the aurora. Those as far south as Illinois in the U.S. may count themselves lucky. [...]
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Thursday, October 15, 2015

Gigantic Hole In The Sun's Atmosphere Has Opened

 
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Gigantic Hole In The Sun's Atmosphere Has Opened

By spaceweather.com
10-14-15

     A gigantic hole in the sun's atmosphere has opened up and a broad stream of solar wind is flowing out of it. This is called a "coronal hole." It is the deep blue-colored region in this extreme UV image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (see above).

Coronal holes are places in the sun's atmosphere where the magnetic field unfurls and allows solar wind to escape. In the image above, the sun's magnetic field is traced by white curving lines. Outside the coronal hole, those magnetic fields curve back on themselves, trapping solar wind inside their loops. Inside the coronal hole, no such trapping occurs. Solar wind plasma is free to fly away as indicated by the white arrows.

For much of the next week, Earth's environment in space will be dominated by winds flowing from this broad hole. This should activate some beautiful Arctic auroras. [...]
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Monday, January 27, 2014

Solar Wind Creates Water in Star Dust, Implications for Life | VIDEO


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Solar Wind Creates Water in Star Dust, Implications for Life

By Charles Q. Choi
SPACE.com
1-27-14

      Solar wind can form water on interplanetary dust, potentially adding to the primordial soup that gave rise to life on Earth, scientists say.

On Earth, there is life virtually everywhere water is found. Past research suggests much of this water may have come to Earth from comets raining down on the planet. But scientists have suggested another source of water in the airless void of space — the continuous flow of charged particles from the sun, a stream known as the solar wind.

This wind consists primarily of protons, the positively charged nuclei of hydrogen atoms. When these particles slam against oxygen-laden rocks — for instance, minerals known as silicates — they could in principle form water molecules.



The creation of water via the solar wind could help explain the presence of water on the moon and on asteroids. The wind could also have formed water on interplanetary dust, which, in turn, could have rained water down on Earth and other rocky planets.

"Interplanetary dust continually lands on the Earth and other solar system bodies," said study co-author Hope Ishii, an astromaterials scientist at the University of Hawaii. In the present day, Earth receives about 30,000 to 40,000 tons of interplanetary dust per year. This amount is thought to have been considerably higher when the Earth was young, because there was more interplanetary dust drifting through the solar system.

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