A powerful solar eruption is expected to blast a stream of charged particles toward Earth tomorrow (Jan. 24), as the strongest radiation storm since 2005 rages on the sun.

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“And there shall be signs•Strongs 4592: semeion, say-mi´-on; neuter of a presumed derivative of the base of 4591; an indication, especially ceremonially or supernaturally: — miracle, sign, token, wonder. in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed the sea and the waves roaring;”
—Luke 21:25

Early this morning (0359 GMT Jan. 23, which corresponds to late Sunday, Jan. 22 at 10:59 p.m. EST), NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught an extreme ultraviolet flash from a huge eruption on the sun , according to the skywatching website Spaceweather.com.

The solar flare spewed from sunspot 1402, a region of the sun that has become increasingly active lately. Several NASA satellites, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and the Stereo spacecraft observed the massive sun storm.

A barrage of charged particles triggered by this morning’s solar flare is expected to hit Earth tomorrow at around 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT), according to experts at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. [Video & photos of the huge solar flare]

According to NOAA, this is the strongest solar radiation storm since May 2005, and as a precaution, polar flights on Earth are expected to be re-routed within the next few hours, Kathy Sullivan, deputy administrator of NOAA, said today at the 92nd annual American Meteorological Society meeting in New Orleans, La.

Scientists call these electromagnetic bursts “coronal mass ejections” (CMEs), and they are closely studied because they can produce potentially harmful geomagnetic storms when the charged particles rain down Earth’s magnetic field lines.

In addition to generating stronger than normal displays of Earth’s auroras (also known as the northern and southern lights), geomagnetic storms aimed directly at our planet can also disrupt satellites in orbit, cause widespread communications interference and damage other electronic infrastructures.

“There is little doubt that the cloud is heading in the general direction of Earth,” Spaceweather.com announced in an alert. “A preliminary inspection of SOHO/STEREO imagery suggests that the CME will deliver a strong glancing blow to Earth’s magnetic field on Jan. 24-25 as it sails mostly north of our planet.”

Sunday’s solar flare was rated an M9-class eruption, which placed it just on the verge 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.

NASA routinely monitors space weather conditions to determine any potential hazards to the astronauts aboard the International Space Station. Based on the agency’s assessment, the six spaceflyers currently living and working on the orbiting outpost are not in any danger, said NASA spokesman Kelly Humphries.

“The flight surgeons have reviewed the space weather forecasts for the flare and determined that there are no expected adverse effects or actions required to protect the on-orbit crew,” Humphries told SPACE.com in an email.

Last week, a separate sunspot group unleashed several M-class flares, and SDO scientists said these types of flares are occurring almost daily as the sun’s rotation slowly turns the region toward Earth.

The sun’s activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. Currently, our planet’s nearest star is in the midst of Solar Cycle 24, and activity is expected to ramp up toward solar maximum in 2013.

The Hermanus Space Weather Warning Centre (SWWC) on Sunday said a large solar flare was currently being experienced in South Africa. The solar flare would result in higher radiation levels from the sun

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Signs in the Sun, Moon and Stars

“And there shall be signs•Strongs 4592: semeion, say-mi´-on; neuter of a presumed derivative of the base of 4591; an indication, especially ceremonially or supernaturally: — miracle, sign, token, wonder. in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed the sea and the waves roaring;”
—Luke 21:25

SWWC’s forecaster Kobus Olckers said people should be careful when they go outside.

“People must wear high sunscreen factor at the moment or preferably go shopping,” he said.

A powerful solar flare could overwhelm high-voltage transformers with electrical currents and short-circuit energy grids, with one such event in 1989 disrupting power across the Canadian province of Quebec.

However, solar flares are nothing new, with the first major solar flare being recorded by British astronomer Richard Carrington in 1859.

Biggest ever solar storm could cause power cuts which last for MONTHS

To view popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“And there shall be signs•Strongs 4592: semeion, say-mi´-on; neuter of a presumed derivative of the base of 4591; an indication, especially ceremonially or supernaturally: — miracle, sign, token, wonder. in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed the sea and the waves roaring;”
—Luke 21:25

Earth is overdue a solar storm as the sun enters its most active period
The world is overdue a ferocious ‘space storm’ that could knock out communications satellites, ground aircraft and trigger blackouts – causing hundreds of billions of pounds of damage, scientists say.
Astronomers today warned that mankind is now more vulnerable to a major solar storm than at any time in history – and that the planet should prepare for a global Katrina-style disaster.
A massive eruption of the sun would save waves of radiation and charged particles to Earth, damaging the satellite systems used for synchronising computers, airline navigation and phone networks.

If the storm is powerful enough it could even crash stock markets and cause power cuts that last weeks or months, experts told the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
The chances of a disruption from space are getting stronger because the sun is entering the most active period of its 11 to 12-year natural cycle.
The world got a taster of the sun’s explosive power last week when the strongest solar eruption in five years sent a torrent of charged plasma hurtling towards the world at 580 miles per second.

he storm created spectacular aurorae and disrupted radio communications.
Professor Sir John Beddington, the government’s chief scientific adviser, said: ‘The issue of space weather has got to be taken seriously. We’ve had a relatively quiet period of space weather – but we can’t expect that quiet period to continue.
‘At the same time over that period the potential vulnerability of our systems has increased dramatically, whether it is the smart grid in our electricity systems or the ubiquitous use of GPS in just about everything we use these days.
‘The situation has changed. We need to be thinking about the ability both to categorise and explain and give early warning when particular types of space weather are likely to occur.’

Threat: Rio de Janeiro during a blackout in 2009. A solar storm could cause global power cuts for months, scientists have warned

Solar storms are caused by massive explosions on the sun.
The explosions release waves of X-rays and ultraviolet radiation which smash into the Earth within minutes, disrupting radio signals and damaging the electronics of satellites.
They are followed ten to 20 minutes later by a burst of energetic particles which cause even more havoc with satellites – and then 15 to 30 hours later by supercharged plasma which collides with Earth’s magnetic field.
The plasma create the aurora – or Northern Lights – and can induce electrical currents in power lines and cables.
Jane Lubchenco, head of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said: ‘This is not a matter of if, it is simply a matter of when and how big.
‘The last time we had a maximum in the solar cycle, about 10 years ago, the world was a very different place. Cell phones are now ubiquitous; they were certainly around but we didn’t rely on them for so many different things.
‘Many things that we take for granted today are so much more prone to the process of space weather than was the case in the last solar maximum.’

Communications satellites would be knocked out by a solar storm, causing widespread chaos on Earth and hundreds of billions of pounds of damage

The sun goes through a regular activity cycle about 11 years long on average. The last solar maximum occurred in 2001. Its latest minimum was particularly weak and long lasting.
Space storms are not new. The first major solar flare was recorded by British astronomer Richard Carrington in 1859.
Other solar geomagnetic storms have been observed in recent decades. One huge solar flare in 1972 cut off long-distance telephone communication in the mid-western state of Illinois, Nasa said.
Another similar flare in 1989 ‘provoked geomagnetic storms that disrupted electric power transmission’ and caused blackouts across the Canadian province of Quebec, the U.S. space agency said.

Sun ramping up for Solar Max
First Max event since mid-80s
US studies effects of ‘digital bomb’
ISS search for dark matter, anti-universe

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“And there shall be signs•Strongs 4592: semeion, say-mi´-on; neuter of a presumed derivative of the base of 4591; an indication, especially ceremonially or supernaturally: — miracle, sign, token, wonder. in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed the sea and the waves roaring;”
—Luke 21:25

AFTER 10 years of comparative slumber, the sun is waking up – and it’s got astronomers on full alert.
This week several US media outlets reported that NASA was warning the massive flare that caused spectacular light shows on Earth earlier this month was just a precursor to a massive solar storm building that had the potential to wipe out the entire planet’s power grid.
NASA has since rebutted those reports, saying it could come “100 years away or just 100 days”, but an Australian astronomer says the space community is betting on the sooner scenario rather than the latter.
Despite its rebuttal, NASA’s been watching out for this storm since 2006 and reports from the US this week claim the storms could hit on that most Hollywood of disaster dates – 2012.

Similar storms back in 1859 and 1921 caused worldwide chaos, wiping out telegraph wires on a massive scale.
The 2012 storm has the potential to be even more disruptive.
“The general consensus among general astronomers (and certainly solar astronomers) is that this coming Solar maximum (2012 but possibly later into 2013) will be the most violent in 100 years,” astronomy lecturer and columnist Dave Reneke said.
“A bold statement and one taken seriously by those it will affect most, namely airline companies, communications companies and anyone working with modern GPS systems.
“They can even trip circuit breakers and knock out orbiting satellites, as has already been done this year.”
Regardless, the point astronomers are making is it doesn’t matter if the next Solar Max isn’t the worst in history, or even as bad as the 1859 storms.
It’s the fact that there hasn’t been one since the mid-80s. Commodore had just launched the Amiga and the only digital storm making the news was Tetris.
No one really knows what effect the 2012-2013 Solar Max will have on today’s digital-reliant society.
Dr Richard Fisher, director of NASA’s Heliophysics division, told Mr Reneke the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning”, causing catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.
US government officials earlier this year took part in a “tabletop exercise” in Boulder, Colorado, to map out what might happen if the Earth was hit with a storm as intense as the 1859 and 1921 storms.
The 1859 storm was of a similar size to that predicted by NASA to hit within the next three years – one of decreased activity, but more powerful eruptions.
NASA said that a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a similar storm occurred today, it could cause “$1 to 2 trillion in damages to society’s high-tech infrastructure and require four to 10 years for complete recovery”.
Staff at the Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado, which hosted the exercise, said with our reliance on satellite technology, such an event could hit the Earth with the magnitude of a global hurricane or earthquake.
The reason for the concern comes as the sun enters a phase known as Solar Cycle 24.
All the alarming news building around the event is being fuelled by two things.
The first is a book by disaster expert Lawrence E. Joseph, Guilty of Apocalypse: The Case Against 2012, in which he claims the “Hurricane Katrina for the Earth” may cause unprecedented planetwide upheaval.
The second is a theory that claims sunspots travel through the sun on a “conveyor belt” similar to the Great Ocean Conveyor Belt which controls weather on Earth.
The belt carries magnetic fields through the sun. When they hit the surface, they explode as sunspots.
Weakened, they then travel back through the sun’s core to recharge.
It all happens on a rough 40-50-year cycle, according to solar physicist David Hathaway of the National Space Science and Technology Center in the US.
He says when the belt speeds up, lots of magnetic fields are collected, which points to more intense future activity.
“The belt was turning fast in 1986-1996,” Prof Hathaway said.
“Old magnetic fields swept up then should reappear as big sunspots in 2010-2011.”
Most experts agree, although those who put the date of Solar Max in 2012 are getting the most press.
They claim satellites will be aged by 50 years, rendering GPS even more useless than ever, and the blast will have the equivalent energy of 100 million hydrogen bombs.
“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Dr Fisher told Mr Reneke in the most recent issue of Australasian Science.
“Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the Earth and it’s rapid, just like a lightning bolt.
“That’s the solar effect.”

‘Here comes the sun, doo-be-doo-do’

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“And there shall be signs•Strongs 4592: semeion, say-mi´-on; neuter of a presumed derivative of the base of 4591; an indication, especially ceremonially or supernaturally: — miracle, sign, token, wonder. in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed the sea and the waves roaring;”
—Luke 21:25

In 2013, the earth will be attacked from space, with one possible outcome being mind-bogglingly severe disruption to our tech-centric way of life.

“The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years, we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity,” says Richard Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division. “At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms.”

Fisher’s comments came during the run-up to last week’s Space Weather Enterprise Forum 2010, at which scientists gathered to discuss how to prepare for the massive solar storms set to strike the earth in 2013.

“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Fisher told the Daily Telegraph. “It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.”

The earth has been battered by solar storms before, but never has civilization been so vulnerable, since it’s now so dependent upon both electrical and electronic infrastructure.

In pre-electronic and barely electrical 1859, a “perfect space storm” shorted out telegraph lines in the US and Europe, causing numerous fires. It also made the Northern Lights visible as far south as Rome, Havana and Hawaii, according to NASA — contemporary accounts relate how a group of campers in the Rocky Mountains were awakened by an “auroral light, so bright that one could easily read common print. Some of the party insisted that it was daylight and began the preparation of breakfast.”

In 1921, a solar storm induced ground currents that crippled the New York transit system. In 1989, another solar storm brought down the entire Quebec power grid due to those pesky ground currents, and plunged six million people into darkness on a cold, cold Canadian night.

Fischer sees serious trouble ahead from the 2013 peak solar activity attacks. “I think the issue is now that modern society is so dependent on electronics, mobile phones and satellites, much more so than the last time this occurred,” he said. “There is a severe economic impact from this. We take it very seriously. The economic impact could be like a large, major hurricane or storm.”

That economic impact could be a “space weather Katrina,” according to a 2008 report from the US National Academies of Sciences’ Space Studies Board entitled Severe Space Weather Events: Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts.

“Strong auroral currents, which wreaked havoc with the telegraph networks during the [1859] event,” the report warns, “can disrupt and damage electric power grids and may contribute to the corrosion of oil and gas pipelines.

“Economic and societal costs attributable to impacts of geomagnetic storms could be of unprecedented levels,” the report concludes. The cost of hurricane Katrina, estimated to be between $81bn and $125bn, would be piddling when compared to the effect of a “future severe geomagnetic storm scenario,” which the report estimates could run as high as $1 trillion to $2 trillion in the first year. Depending on damage, the report contends, full recovery could take 4 to 10 years.

Scary estimates, indeed, but — as with that other scary eventuality, global climate change — preparation could help mitigate the effects of another “perfect space storm”.

Fisher told the Telegraph that precautions could include, for example, creating power-grid backup systems so that if transformers or giant load-balancing capacitors are fried by a solar outburst, Plan B could go into effect. “If you know that a hazard is coming … and you have time enough to prepare and take precautions, then you can avoid trouble,” he said.

You can keep tabs on what the sun is throwing at us at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center. But don’t worry too much — after all, if the Mayan calendar is correct, we need not fret about 2013. ®

Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation “space storm”, Nasa has warned.

(See video below)

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity the sea and the waves roaring;”
—Luke 21:25

National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.
Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber” sometime around 2013, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning” and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.
Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday” items such as home computers, iPods and Sat Navs.
Due to humans’ heavy reliance on electronic devices, which are sensitive to magnetic energy, the storm could leave a multi-billion pound damage bill and “potentially devastating” problems for governments.
“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,” Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa’s Heliophysics division, said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph.
“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.
“Large areas will be without electricity power and to repair that damage will be hard as that takes time.”
Dr Fisher added: “Systems will just not work. The flares change the magnetic field on the earth that is rapid and like a lightning bolt. That is the solar affect.”
A “space weather” conference in Washington DC last week, attended by Nasa scientists, policy-makers, researchers and government officials, was told of similar warnings.
While scientists have previously told of the dangers of the storm, Dr Fisher’s comments are the most comprehensive warnings from Nasa to date.
Dr Fisher, 69, said the storm, which will cause the Sun to reach temperatures of more than 10,000 F (5500C), occurred only a few times over a person’s life.
Every 22 years the Sun’s magnetic energy cycle peaks while the number of sun spots – or flares – hits a maximum level every 11 years.
Dr Fisher, a Nasa scientist for 20 years, said these two events would combine in 2013 to produce huge levels of radiation.
He said large swathes of the world could face being without power for several months, although he admitted that was unlikely.
A more likely scenario was that large areas, including northern Europe and Britain which have “fragile” power grids, would be without power and access to electronic devices for hours, possibly even days.
He said preparations were similar to those in a hurricane season, where authorities knew a problem was imminent but did not know how serious it would be.
“I think the issue is now that modern society is so dependant on electronics, mobile phones and satellites, much more so than the last time this occurred,” he said.
“There is a severe economic impact from this. We take it very seriously. The economic impact could be like a large, major hurricane or storm.”
The National Academy of Sciences warned two years ago that power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications could “all be knocked out by intense solar activity”.
It warned a powerful solar storm could cause “twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina”. That storm devastated New Orleans in 2005 and left an estimated damage bill of more than $125bn (£85bn).
Dr Fisher said precautions could be taken including creating back up systems for hospitals and power grids and allow development on satellite “safe modes”.
“If you know that a hazard is coming … and you have time enough to prepare and take precautions, then you can avoid trouble,” he added.
His division, a department of the Science Mission Directorate at Nasa headquarters in Washington DC, which investigates the Sun’s influence on the earth, uses dozens of satellites to study the threat
The government has said it was aware of the threat and “contingency plans were in place” to cope with the fall out from such a storm
These included allowing for certain transformers at the edge of the National Grid to be temporarily switched off and to improve voltage levels throughout the network.
The National Risk Register, established in 2008 to identify different dangers to Britain, also has “comprehensive” plans on how to handle a complete outage of electricity supplies.

The sun is about to get a lot more active, which could have ill effects on Earth. So to prepare, top sun scientists met Tuesday to discuss the best ways to protect Earth’s satellites and other vital systems from the coming solar storms.

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity the sea and the waves roaring;”
—Luke 21:25

“Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days,in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.”
—Isa 30:26

Solar storms occur when sunspots on our star erupt and spew out flumes of charged particles that can damage power systems. The sun’s activity typically follows an 11-year cycle, and it looks to be coming out of a slump and gearing up for an active period.
“The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity,” said Richard Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division. “At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we’re getting together to discuss.”
Fisher and other experts met at the Space Weather Enterprise Forum, which took place in Washington, D.C., at the National Press Club.

Solar storms occur when sunspots on our star erupt and spew out flumes of charged particles that can damage power systems. The sun’s activity typically follows an 11-year cycle, and it looks to be coming out of a slump and gearing up for an active period.
“The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity,” said Richard Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division. “At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we’re getting together to discuss.”
Fisher and other experts met at the Space Weather Enterprise Forum, which took place in Washington, D.C., at the National Press Club.

(CNN) — Authorities in several Midwestern states were flooded Wednesday night with reports of a gigantic fireball lighting up the sky, the National Weather Service said.

Signs in the Sun, Moon and Stars

“Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.”
—Luke 21:26

The fireball was visible for about 15 minutes beginning about 10 p.m., said the National Weather Service in Sullivan, Wisconsin, just west of Milwaukee.
“The fireball was seen over the northern sky, moving from west to east,” said the NWS in the Quad Cities area, which includes parts of Iowa and Illinois.
“Well before it reached the horizon, it broke up into smaller pieces and was lost from sight,” the service said. “Several reports of a prolonged sonic boom were received from areas north of Highway 20, along with shaking of homes, trees and various other objects including wind chimes,” it said.
It said the fireball was seen across parts of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. CNN affiliate WISN-TV said that people in Ohio also saw it.
Video from WISN showed a massive ball of light exploding across the sky. The Doppler Radar from the Quad Cities weather service appeared to capture a portion of the smoke trail from the fireball at just after 10 p.m., the NWS said. It appears as a thin line extending across portions of Grant and Iowa Counties in Wisconsin.
There has been no official determination as to what caused the fireball, the NWS in Sullivan said.
However, it said there is a meteor shower called Gamma Virginids that occurs from April 4 to April 21, with peak activity expected on Wednesday and Thursday.
“A large meteorite could have caused the brilliant fireball that has been reported,” the National Weather Service said.
The NWS in Quad Cities said that it was unknown if any part of a meteorite hit the ground.
According to NASA, a meteor appears when a meteoroid — a particle, chunk of metal or stony matter — enters the Earth’s atmosphere from outer space.
“Air friction heats the meteoroid so that it glows and creates a shining trail of gases and melted meteoroid particles,” it said. “People sometimes call the brightest meteors fireballs.”

The cataclysmic explosion of a giant star early in the history of the Universe is the most distant single object ever detected by telescopes.

Signs in the Sun, Moon and Stars

“And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity the sea and the waves roaring;”
—Luke 21:25

The colossal blast was picked up first by Nasa’s Swift space observatory which is tuned to see the high-energy gamma-rays emitted from extreme events.
Other telescopes then followed up the signal, confirming the source to be more than 13 billion light-years away.
Scientists say the star’s destruction probably resulted in a black hole.
“This gets us into a realm where we’ve never been before,” said Professor Nial Tanvir, of the University of Leicester, UK.
“This is the most remote gamma-ray burst (GRB) ever detected, and also the most distant object ever discovered.”
Fast mover
The Swift satellite was launched in 2004 to investigate the energetic flashes that characterise some of the Universe’s most violent happenings.

Led by the US space agency, the mission has significant UK and Italian contributions.
It is a three-in-one observatory. Its Burst Alert Telescope is set up to catch the initial flood of gamma rays. The spacecraft then swings itself to look directly into the flash with X-ray and ultraviolet/visible telescopes.
This longer wavelength afterglow lasts on the order of hours to days and Swift also calls up ground-based observatories to join the spectacle. Indeed, it is the ground campaign that establishes the distance.
This burst, dubbed GRB 090423, was detected by Swift on 23 April.
Follow-up observations were led by the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope and the Gemini North Telescope, both on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
Cosmic expansion
Analysis of the light spectrum confirmed the blast had a redshift of 8.2. Redshift is a measure of the degree to which light has been “stretched” by the expansion of the Universe. The greater the redshift, the more distant the object and the earlier it is being seen in cosmic history.

The figure 8.2 equates to a distance of 13.035 billion light-years. Put another way, the explosion is being viewed when the Universe was only 630 million years old, a mere one-20th of its current age (estimated to be 13.7 billion years old).
The previous record holder was a GRB witnessed, also by Swift, in September 2008. It had a redshift of 6.7, making it 190 million light-years closer than GRB 090423.
Scientists have seen what they believe may be faint galaxies at redshifts 8-10, but their true nature is still being investigated.
Researchers are very keen to probe these great distances because they will learn how the early Universe evolved, and that will help them explain why the cosmos looks like it does now.
‘Fried’ gas
Scientists believe the super-hot conditions that existed after the Big Bang eventually cooled sufficiently to allow protons, neutrons and electrons to form neutral atoms of hydrogen and helium.
When the first stars formed, from infalling clouds of hydrogen and helium, they lit up the cosmos.

What is more, these hot, young stars produced so much intense ultraviolet radiation, they “fried” the gas around them – tearing electrons off neutral atoms to leave the diffuse plasma we detect between the stars even today.
The star which ended its days as GRB 090423 was very probably among that early population of giants responsible for this re-ionisation.
Professor Tanvir said: “The re-ionisation era was a change that occurred in the Universe when the first stars switched on; but the actual timescale for that and the processes at work are poorly understood because we have so few observations. We’re now pushing into that epoch.”
Professor Gerry Gilmore, from Cambridge University, UK, commented: “[This] was probably one of the first stars that ever formed in the Universe; and it will have been one of the first things that ever created stuff like carbon, nitrogen and oxygen that led then to normal stars like our Sun and the planets forming much, much later on.
“This is really a crucial stage of the Universe. The fact that we can see that long ago is just astonishing,” he told BBC News.

IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

A fierce solar storm could lead to a global disaster on an unprecedented scale (Image: SOHO Consortium / ESA / NASA)

(See video below)

“Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days,in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.”
—Isa 30:26

“And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.”
—Revelation 16:8 

IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation’s infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event – a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.

It sounds ridiculous. Surely the sun couldn’t create so profound a disaster on Earth. Yet an extraordinary report funded by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in January this year claims it could do just that.

Over the last few decades, western civilisations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction. Our modern way of life, with its reliance on technology, has unwittingly exposed us to an extraordinary danger: plasma balls spewed from the surface of the sun could wipe out our power grids, with catastrophic consequences.

The projections of just how catastrophic make chilling reading. “We’re moving closer and closer to the edge of a possible disaster,” says Daniel Baker, a space weather expert based at the University of Colorado in Boulder, and chair of the NAS committee responsible for the report.

It is hard to conceive of the sun wiping out a large amount of our hard-earned progress. Nevertheless, it is possible. The surface of the sun is a roiling mass of plasma – charged high-energy particles – some of which escape the surface and travel through space as the solar wind. From time to time, that wind carries a billion-tonne glob of plasma, a fireball known as a coronal mass ejection (see “When hell comes to Earth”). If one should hit the Earth’s magnetic shield, the result could be truly devastating.

The incursion of the plasma into our atmosphere causes rapid changes in the configuration of Earth’s magnetic field which, in turn, induce currents in the long wires of the power grids. The grids were not built to handle this sort of direct current electricity. The greatest danger is at the step-up and step-down transformers used to convert power from its transport voltage to domestically useful voltage. The increased DC current creates strong magnetic fields that saturate a transformer’s magnetic core. The result is runaway current in the transformer’s copper wiring, which rapidly heats up and melts. This is exactly what happened in the Canadian province of Quebec in March 1989, and six million people spent 9 hours without electricity. But things could get much, much worse than that.

Worse than Katrina

The most serious space weather event in history happened in 1859. It is known as the Carrington event, after the British amateur astronomer Richard Carrington, who was the first to note its cause: “two patches of intensely bright and white light” emanating from a large group of sunspots. The Carrington event comprised eight days of severe space weather.

There were eyewitness accounts of stunning auroras, even at equatorial latitudes. The world’s telegraph networks experienced severe disruptions, and Victorian magnetometers were driven off the scale.

Though a solar outburst could conceivably be more powerful, “we haven’t found an example of anything worse than a Carrington event”, says James Green, head of NASA’s planetary division and an expert on the events of 1859. “From a scientific perspective, that would be the one that we’d want to survive.” However, the prognosis from the NAS analysis is that, thanks to our technological prowess, many of us may not.

There are two problems to face. The first is the modern electricity grid, which is designed to operate at ever higher voltages over ever larger areas. Though this provides a more efficient way to run the electricity networks, minimising power losses and wastage through overproduction, it has made them much more vulnerable to space weather. The high-power grids act as particularly efficient antennas, channelling enormous direct currents into the power transformers.

The second problem is the grid’s interdependence with the systems that support our lives: water and sewage treatment, supermarket delivery infrastructures, power station controls, financial markets and many others all rely on electricity. Put the two together, and it is clear that a repeat of the Carrington event could produce a catastrophe the likes of which the world has never seen. “It’s just the opposite of how we usually think of natural disasters,” says John Kappenman, a power industry analyst with the Metatech Corporation of Goleta, California, and an advisor to the NAS committee that produced the report. “Usually the less developed regions of the world are most vulnerable, not the highly sophisticated technological regions.”

According to the NAS report, a severe space weather event in the US could induce ground currents that would knock out 300 key transformers within about 90 seconds, cutting off the power for more than 130 million people (see map). From that moment, the clock is ticking for America.

First to go – immediately for some people – is drinkable water. Anyone living in a high-rise apartment, where water has to be pumped to reach them, would be cut off straight away. For the rest, drinking water will still come through the taps for maybe half a day. With no electricity to pump water from reservoirs, there is no more after that.

There is simply no electrically powered transport: no trains, underground or overground. Our just-in-time culture for delivery networks may represent the pinnacle of efficiency, but it means that supermarket shelves would empty very quickly – delivery trucks could only keep running until their tanks ran out of fuel, and there is no electricity to pump any more from the underground tanks at filling stations.

Back-up generators would run at pivotal sites – but only until their fuel ran out. For hospitals, that would mean about 72 hours of running a bare-bones, essential care only, service. After that, no more modern healthcare.

72 hours of healthcare remaining
The truly shocking finding is that this whole situation would not improve for months, maybe years: melted transformer hubs cannot be repaired, only replaced. “From the surveys I’ve done, you might have a few spare transformers around, but installing a new one takes a well-trained crew a week or more,” says Kappenman. “A major electrical utility might have one suitably trained crew, maybe two.”

Within a month, then, the handful of spare transformers would be used up. The rest will have to be built to order, something that can take up to 12 months.

Even when some systems are capable of receiving power again, there is no guarantee there will be any to deliver. Almost all natural gas and fuel pipelines require electricity to operate. Coal-fired power stations usually keep reserves to last 30 days, but with no transport systems running to bring more fuel, there will be no electricity in the second month.

30 days of coal left
Nuclear power stations wouldn’t fare much better. They are programmed to shut down in the event of serious grid problems and are not allowed to restart until the power grid is up and running.

With no power for heating, cooling or refrigeration systems, people could begin to die within days. There is immediate danger for those who rely on medication. Lose power to New Jersey, for instance, and you have lost a major centre of production of pharmaceuticals for the entire US. Perishable medications such as insulin will soon be in short supply. “In the US alone there are a million people with diabetes,” Kappenman says. “Shut down production, distribution and storage and you put all those lives at risk in very short order.”

Help is not coming any time soon, either. If it is dark from the eastern seaboard to Chicago, some affected areas are hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away from anyone who might help. And those willing to help are likely to be ill-equipped to deal with the sheer scale of the disaster. “If a Carrington event happened now, it would be like a hurricane Katrina, but 10 times worse,” says Paul Kintner, a plasma physicist at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York.

In reality, it would be much worse than that. Hurricane Katrina’s societal and economic impact has been measured at $81 billion to $125 billion. According to the NAS report, the impact of what it terms a “severe geomagnetic storm scenario” could be as high as $2 trillion. And that’s just the first year after the storm. The NAS puts the recovery time at four to 10 years. It is questionable whether the US would ever bounce back.

4-10 years to recover
“I don’t think the NAS report is scaremongering,” says Mike Hapgood, who chairs the European Space Agency’s space weather team. Green agrees. “Scientists are conservative by nature and this group is really thoughtful,” he says. “This is a fair and balanced report.”

Such nightmare scenarios are not restricted to North America. High latitude nations such as Sweden and Norway have been aware for a while that, while regular views of the aurora are pretty, they are also reminders of an ever-present threat to their electricity grids. However, the trend towards installing extremely high voltage grids means that lower latitude countries are also at risk. For example, China is on the way to implementing a 1000-kilovolt electrical grid, twice the voltage of the US grid. This would be a superb conduit for space weather-induced disaster because the grid’s efficiency to act as an antenna rises as the voltage between the grid and the ground increases. “China is going to discover at some point that they have a problem,” Kappenman says.

Neither is Europe sufficiently prepared. Responsibility for dealing with space weather issues is “very fragmented” in Europe, says Hapgood.

Europe’s electricity grids, on the other hand, are highly interconnected and extremely vulnerable to cascading failures. In 2006, the routine switch-off of a small part of Germany’s grid – to let a ship pass safely under high-voltage cables – caused a cascade power failure across western Europe. In France alone, five million people were left without electricity for two hours. “These systems are so complicated we don’t fully understand the effects of twiddling at one place,” Hapgood says. “Most of the time it’s alright, but occasionally it will get you.”

The good news is that, given enough warning, the utility companies can take precautions, such as adjusting voltages and loads, and restricting transfers of energy so that sudden spikes in current don’t cause cascade failures. There is still more bad news, however. Our early warning system is becoming more unreliable by the day.

By far the most important indicator of incoming space weather is NASA’s Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE). The probe, launched in 1997, has a solar orbit that keeps it directly between the sun and Earth. Its uninterrupted view of the sun means it gives us continuous reports on the direction and velocity of the solar wind and other streams of charged particles that flow past its sensors. ACE can provide between 15 and 45 minutes’ warning of any incoming geomagnetic storms. The power companies need about 15 minutes to prepare their systems for a critical event, so that would seem passable.

15 minutes’ warning
However, observations of the sun and magnetometer readings during the Carrington event shows that the coronal mass ejection was travelling so fast it took less than 15 minutes to get from where ACE is positioned to Earth. “It arrived faster than we can do anything,” Hapgood says.

There is another problem. ACE is 11 years old, and operating well beyond its planned lifespan. The onboard detectors are not as sensitive as they used to be, and there is no telling when they will finally give up the ghost. Furthermore, its sensors become saturated in the event of a really powerful solar flare. “It was built to look at average conditions rather than extremes,” Baker says.

He was part of a space weather commission that three years ago warned about the problems of relying on ACE. “It’s been on my mind for a long time,” he says. “To not have a spare, or a strategy to replace it if and when it should fail, is rather foolish.”

There is no replacement for ACE due any time soon. Other solar observation satellites, such as the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) can provide some warning, but with less detailed information and – crucially – much later. “It’s quite hard to assess what the impact of losing ACE will be,” Hapgood says. “We will largely lose the early warning capability.”

The world will, most probably, yawn at the prospect of a devastating solar storm until it happens. Kintner says his students show a “deep indifference” when he lectures on the impact of space weather. But if policy-makers show a similar indifference in the face of the latest NAS report, it could cost tens of millions of lives, Kappenman reckons. “It could conceivably be the worst natural disaster possible,” he says.

The report outlines the worst case scenario for the US. The “perfect storm” is most likely on a spring or autumn night in a year of heightened solar activity – something like 2012. Around the equinoxes, the orientation of the Earth’s field to the sun makes us particularly vulnerable to a plasma strike.

What’s more, at these times of year, electricity demand is relatively low because no one needs too much heating or air conditioning. With only a handful of the US grid’s power stations running, the system relies on computer algorithms shunting large amounts of power around the grid and this leaves the network highly vulnerable to sudden spikes.

If ACE has failed by then, or a plasma ball flies at us too fast for any warning from ACE to reach us, the consequences could be staggering. “A really large storm could be a planetary disaster,” Kappenman says.

So what should be done? No one knows yet – the report is meant to spark that conversation. Baker is worried, though, that the odds are stacked against that conversation really getting started. As the NAS report notes, it is terribly difficult to inspire people to prepare for a potential crisis that has never happened before and may not happen for decades to come. “It takes a lot of effort to educate policy-makers, and that is especially true with these low-frequency events,” he says.

We should learn the lessons of hurricane Katrina, though, and realise that “unlikely” doesn’t mean “won’t happen”. Especially when the stakes are so high. The fact is, it could come in the next three or four years – and with devastating effects. “The Carrington event happened during a mediocre, ho-hum solar cycle,” Kintner says. “It came out of nowhere, so we just don’t know when something like that is going to happen again.”

Related editorial: We must heed the threat of solar storms

Bibliography
Severe Space Weather Events – Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts (National Academies Press)
When hell comes to Earth
Severe space weather events often coincide with the appearance of sunspots, which are indicators of particularly intense magnetic fields at the sun’s surface.

The chaotic motion of charged particles in the upper atmosphere of the sun creates magnetic fields that writhe, twist and turn, and occasionally snap and reconfigure themselves in what is known as a “reconnection”. These reconnection events are violent, and can fling out billions of tonness of plasma in a “coronal mass ejection” (CME).

If flung towards the Earth, the plasma ball will accelerate as it travels through space and its intense magnetic field will soon interact with the planet’s magnetic field, the magnetosphere. Depending on the relative orientation of the two fields, several things can happen. If the fields are oriented in the same direction, they slip round one another. In the worst case scenario, though, when the field of a particularly energetic CME opposes the Earth’s field, things get much more dramatic. “The Earth can’t cope with the plasma,” says James Green, head of NASA’s planetary division. “The CME just opens up the magnetosphere like a can-opener, and matter squirts in.”

The sun’s activity waxes and wanes every 11 years or so, with the appearance of sunspots following the same cycle. This period isn’t consistent, however. Sometimes the interval between sunspot maxima is as short as nine years, other times as long as 14 years. At the moment the sun appears calm. “We’re in the equivalent of an idyllic summer’s day. The sun is quiet and benign, the quietest it has been for 100 years,” says Mike Hapgood, who chairs the European Space Agency’s space weather team, “but it could turn the other way.” The next solar maximum is expected in 2012.