M-class sun flare alert for sat phones in Arctic areas
Apr 29, 2005 19: 34 EST
More than four years after solar maximum, there's one big sun spot transiting the solar disk now, alerts SpaceWeather.com. Since it appeared on April 25th, sunspot 756 has tripled in size. It's now about five times wider than Earth and very dynamic.
Sky watchers in Alaska and Canada should be alert for auroras on May 1st and 2nd. That's when Earth is expected to run into a solar wind stream flowing from a coronal hole on the sun. The flare is M-class (medium-sized) and can cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth's polar regions.
Image of the sun on November 4, 2003 (courtesy of NASA) when expeditions’ communications started going haywire – from Everest to the Atlantic. That flare "was more than twice as big as the previous record flare," according to the scientists. So big that sensors on satellites were getting over-loaded, like if you were to weigh an elephant on a bathroom scale.
For expeditions, this huge blast along with the others at the time broke down their communication capability. Data transfer through the sat phones didn't work at all and calls would be inaudible or cut off.
Scientists classify solar flares according to their x-ray brightness in the wavelength range 1 to 8 Angstroms. There are 3 categories: X-class flares are big; they are major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms.
M-class flares are medium-sized; they generally cause brief radio blackouts that affect Earth's polar regions. Minor radiation storms sometimes follow an M-class flare. Compared to X- and M-class events, C-class flares are small with few noticeable consequences here on Earth.
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