Adamite News: Massive CME On It's Way

STRONG SOLAR ACTIVITY: For the third day in a row, active sunspot 1261 has unleashed a significant M-class solar flare. The latest blast at 0357 UT on August 4th registered M9.3 on the Richter Scale of Flares, almost crossing the threshold into X-territory (X-flares are the most powerful kind). The number of energetic protons around Earth has jumped nearly 100-fold as a result of this event.

The eruption propelled a bright coronal mass ejection (CME) toward Earth. Click on the image to view a movie of the expanding cloud recorded by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory:

Moving at an estimated speed of 1950 km/s, this CME is expected to sweep up two earlier CMEs already en route. Analysts at the GSFC Space Weather Lab say thecombined cloud should reach Earth on August 5th at 13:55 UT plus or minus 7 hours: "The impact on Earth is likely to be major. The estimated maximum geomagnetic activity index level Kp is 7 (Kp ranges from 0 - 9). The flanks of the CME may also impact STEREO A, Mars and Mercury/MESSENGER." High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras. Aurora alerts: text, voice.

Major problems may occur due to the strength of this CME, they may include the following....

Power systems: possible widespread voltage control problems and some protective systems will mistakenly trip out key assets from the grid.

Spacecraft operations: may experience surface charging and tracking problems, corrections may be needed for orientation problems.

Other systems: induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, HF radio propagation sporadic, satellite navigation degraded for hours, low-frequency radio navigation disrupted, and aurora has been seen as low as Alabama and northern California (typically 45° geomagnetic lat.)**.

The solar wind is less energetic than galactic wind (cosmic radiation) by orders of magnitude and can be identified by these energetic differences. Solar wind energies are 1-2 keV (thousand electron volts) per nucleon. A large eruption from the sun (Coronal Mass Ejection, CME) could produce solar particles with energies of 10 MeV (million electron volts). Cosmic radiation energies are in excess of several billion electron volts.

For current Magnetosphere readings like the picture below, CLICK HERE