Cancel

gear Push settings

bars

homehome Home chatchat Notifications


Sunspot 1302: big, bad, and coming our way

Every three hours throughout the day, magnetic observers located all around our planet measure the biggest magnetic change that their instruments can record during that period. All the measured values are averaged all over the world and an index is obtained (the Kp index), telling researchers how disturbed the Earth’s magnetic field is on a […]

Mihai Andrei
September 27, 2011 @ 4:35 am

share Share

Every three hours throughout the day, magnetic observers located all around our planet measure the biggest magnetic change that their instruments can record during that period. All the measured values are averaged all over the world and an index is obtained (the Kp index), telling researchers how disturbed the Earth’s magnetic field is on a 9 point scale.

The huge 1302 sunspot unleashed another powerful flare on Saturday morning, and yesterday (Monday) a geomagnetic storm with a Kp index of 8 started; it is still in progress. The Goddard Space Weather Lab reported a strong compression of Earth’s magnetosphere and simulations suggest that solar wind plasma has penetrated close to geosynchronous orbit starting at 9am.

The active region (AR) dubbed 1302 has already unleashed M8.6 and M7.4 flares on Sept. 24 and an M8.8 flare early on Sept. 25, but none of them were directed at our planet; however, this is bound to change as the sunspot changes its direction towards Earth, and once it does, we will definitely begin to feel its activity. AR 1302 is not slowing down, and its actually increasing its activity.

Via NASA

share Share

A Huge, Lazy Black Hole Is Redefining the Early Universe

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a massive, dormant black hole from just 800 million years after the Big Bang.

Proba-3: The Budget Mission That Creates Solar Eclipses on Demand

Now scientists won't have to travel from one place to another to observe solar eclipses. They can create their own eclipses lasting for hours.

The Universe’s Structure May Be 'Smoother' Than Expected, Raising Big Questions for the Standard Model of Cosmology

We may be on the cusp of finally breaking the standard model of cosmology.

Scientists find the biggest black hole jets — "we are talking about 140 Milky Way diameters"

Talk about a giant in the universe.

NASA researchers find two black holes heading for a merger in our cosmic neighborhood

This is the closest pair detected in the local universe using multiwavelength (visible and X-ray light) observations.

Cosmology is at a tipping point – we may be on the verge of discovering new physics

For the past few years, a series of controversies have rocked the well-established field of cosmology. In a nutshell, the predictions of the standard model of the universe appear to be at odds with some recent observations. There are heated debates about whether these observations are biased, or whether the cosmological model, which predicts the […]

Astronomers use JWST to peer into the heart of the Crab Nebula

Scientific papers rarely have images this spectacular in them.

Record-breaking quasar ate one Sun's mass *per day* and grew to an unimaginable mass

Oh, you thought the Sun was big? That's cute.

This planet is half lava and it's the most metal thing

When you look at a lot of planets, you're bound to find some unusual ones — but this one is something else.

Some stars may have small black holes at their core — and we should be able to find them

Do some stars swallow black holes completely?