Gambar dari Kosmo Online (Gambar yang dirakamkan Pentadbiran Aeronautik dan Angkasa
Lepas Kebangsaan pada 22 Januari lalu menunjukkan nyalaan solar di
Hemisfera Utara di matahari.)
Dipetik dari Kosmo Online :
WASHINGTON, Amerika Syarikat (AS) - Beberapa pegawai cuaca angkasa
lepas menyatakan ribut solar paling kuat dalam tempoh lebih enam tahun
akan mengenai Bumi dengan pancaran radiasi akan berlaku.
Sebelum ini, radiasi ribut solar cuma mengganggu satelit dan mendatangkan masalah kepada angkasawan di angkasa lepas.
Namun, ia juga boleh menyebabkan gangguan komunikasi pada pesawat yang berada di udara.
Pusat Ramalan Cuaca Angkasa Lepas di negeri Colorado dalam satu
kenyataan mengesahkan ribut solar itu berlaku pada pukul 11 malam (waktu
AS) Ahad lalu.
Ahli fizik AS, Doug Biesecker berkata, perkara paling membimbangkan mengenai ribut solar adalah radiasi yang dilepas.
Pancaran itu ,katanya, tiba di Bumi sejam kemudian.
Hentaman radiasi itu dijangka berlarutan sehingga hari ini.
Menurut Biesecker, tahap radiasi kali ini dianggap kuat tetapi
radiasi lebih dahsyat pernah dikeluarkan beberapa ribut solar sebelum
ini.
Radiasi kali ini adalah yang paling kuat sejak ribut solar pada Mei 2005.
Plasma yang keluar dari matahari ekoran ribut solar berkenaan pula tiba di Bumi semalam.
Ia dijangka menyebabkan gangguan pada grid elektrik di Bumi. - Agensi
Article:
'Space Hurricane': Huge Solar Storm Is Pounding Earth Now
by Denise Chow, SPACE.com Staff Writer
Date: 24 January 2012 Time: 11:55 AM ET
The
images above show a HUGE solar flare as observed by the Atmospheric
Imaging Assembly (AIA) on NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) at
0327, 0342, and 0412 GMT on January 23 (10:27 p.m., 10:42 p.m. and 11:12
p.m. EST on Jan. 22).CREDIT: NASA/SDO
A wave of charged particles from an intense solar storm is pummeling the Earth right now, which may trigger stunning aurora displays and cause minor disruptions to satellites over the next two days, NASA scientists say.
The storm began when a powerful solar flare erupted on the sun yesterday (Jan. 23), blasting a stream of charged particles toward Earth. This electromagnetic burst, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), hit Earth at about 9:31 a.m. EST (1430 GMT), according to scientists at the Space Weather Center at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.
"It's a minor to moderate storm," Yihua Zheng, a lead researcher at the Space Weather Center, told SPACE.com. "Probably in the next 10 hours or so, people at high latitudes can see auroras. This could maybe cause communication errors at the polar caps, but the magnetic activities are probably not too strong."
The northern lights displays will be especially visible for people in northern latitudes where it is currently night.
"For parts of Europe already, and further points to the east, we should expect to see strong magnetic storm conditions," Harlan Spence, an astrophysicist at the University of New Hampshire, director of its Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, told SPACE.com. "There's a very good chance tonight that we'll be seeing some very strong auroral displays. Typically auroras occur at relatively high latitudes, but for events like this, you could get auroras down at mid to low latitudes."
When a coronal mass ejection hits Earth, it can trigger potentially harmful geomagnetic storms as the charged particles and the fields within it interact with the planet's magnetic field lines. This can amp up normal displays of Earth's auroras (also known as the northern and southern lights), but a strong CME aimed directly at Earth can also cause disruptions to satellites in orbit, as well as power grids and communications infrastructures on the ground.
Yesterday's solar flare set off an extremely fast-moving CME, Zheng said, and the associated radiation storm was the strongest since 2005. But the ejected cloud of plasma and charged particles was not directly aimed at Earth, and is hitting the planet at an angle instead. This glancing blow will likely lessen any impacts on Earth, she added. [Photos: Huge Solar Flare Sparks Major Radiation Storm]
"Earth's magnetic field served as a shield, and pretty much shielded the radiation so that it doesn't penetrate that deep," Zheng said. "It's like a car collision: head-on or off to the side. A CME is like that too. For this one, if it was a direct hit, Earth would receive a much stronger impact. This one was on an angle — toward higher latitudes and a little off the ecliptic — otherwise it would be a much stronger impact."
Still, the storm does rank as the biggest space radiation event in about seven years, Spence said.
"It's not as big as some of the big, historic storms, but the chance for re-intensification is still possible because this active spot on the sun that created the initial havoc could go off again," he explained.
On Monday, NOAA deputy chief Kathy Sullivan told attendees of the 92nd annual American Meteorological Society meeting in New Orleans, La., that the storm would likely force some commercial airlines to reroute planes that fly over the Earth's polar regions as a precautionary measure. Today, Delta Airlines announced it had rerouted some flights between Asia and the United States, most notably flights from Detroit to Hong Kong, Shanghai and Seoul, to avoid the solar storm's effects, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Several NASA satellites, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and the Stereo spacecraft observed the massive sun storm. Data from these spacecraft were combined to help scientists create models to calculate when and where the CME was going to hit Earth.
"A CME is kind of like a space hurricane," Zheng said. "You have to predict how it will form and evolve. From the models, we can see which spacecraft will be in its path, and what will be impacted."
At the Space Weather Center, scientists were able to pinpoint the arrival of the CME more accurately than ever before.
"We predicted it would arrive at 9:18 a.m. and in reality, it arrived at 9:31 a.m., so ours has a 13-minute error," Zheng said. "Usually for this kind of model, the average error is seven hours, so this is the best case."
Yesterday's solar flare was rated an M9-class eruption, which placed it teetering on the edge of being an X-class flare, the most powerful type of solar storm. M-class sun storms are powerful but mid-range, while C-class flares are weaker.
The flare erupted from sunspot 1402, a region near the meridian of the sun that has been active for a while now, Zheng said. The powerful solar storm could be signaling that the sun is waking up after an extended period of relative dormancy.
The sun's activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. The star is currently in the midst of Solar Cycle 24, and activity is expected to continue ramping up toward the solar maximum in 2013.
Editor's note: If you snap an amazing photo of the auroras sparked by the solar storm, or other skywatching image, and would like to share it for a possible story or gallery, please contact managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com.
You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
