Two things happen in a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). Electromagnetic (EM) radiation travels at the speed of light and interacts with our ionosphere. This causes radio blackouts. I'm a ham radio operator, and a lot of us have apps for solar flare alerts because it pretty much shuts things down, and you can time it pretty good if the alert service is on top of it. Alert -> 8-9 minutes later -> tons of noise (static) that you can't punch a signal through. Secondly, actual particles of matter are ejected from the sun, these travel significantly slower - when they end up hitting the atmosphere, they collide with other atoms and create the aurora.
If light takes 8-9 minutes to get here, then how does the alert arrive 8-9 minutes before that? Is there a probe on the Sun with FTL comms? Or am I just doing it wrong?
Oh - and I don’t know if all flares are CMEs. You made me realize I have a working knowledge of all this and I need to dive deeper and learn more about it all. It’s fucking cool stuff!
I probably oversimplified quite a bit. There are two main probes that I know of that sit between us and the sun. The alert will happen and then things get noisy in the ionosphere - I’ve never actually sat with a stopwatch, but I’m curious so I’m going to do it next time. Flares aren’t binary - their magnitude starts off low, peaks and then ebbs. I and not sure at what point in that flow do they send an alert, and at what point in the flow do I notice things on my end.
WD0F** here. . Good explanation. As I have listened to a lot of the “space weather” junkies they all are saying we have 6 events coming our way and currently we are experiencing #3 this evening (Sat). The concern is that every solar event breaks down our atmospheric “shields” to the point where the 5/6th event “could” cause electrical damage to the grid.
Two things happen in a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). Electromagnetic (EM) radiation travels at the speed of light and interacts with our ionosphere. This causes radio blackouts. I'm a ham radio operator, and a lot of us have apps for solar flare alerts because it pretty much shuts things down, and you can time it pretty good if the alert service is on top of it. Alert -> 8-9 minutes later -> tons of noise (static) that you can't punch a signal through. Secondly, actual particles of matter are ejected from the sun, these travel significantly slower - when they end up hitting the atmosphere, they collide with other atoms and create the aurora.
If light takes 8-9 minutes to get here, then how does the alert arrive 8-9 minutes before that? Is there a probe on the Sun with FTL comms? Or am I just doing it wrong?
Oh - and I don’t know if all flares are CMEs. You made me realize I have a working knowledge of all this and I need to dive deeper and learn more about it all. It’s fucking cool stuff!
Answer: Yes
Thanks. :)
You're welcome - I'm always happy to help answer all of life's difficult questions.
I probably oversimplified quite a bit. There are two main probes that I know of that sit between us and the sun. The alert will happen and then things get noisy in the ionosphere - I’ve never actually sat with a stopwatch, but I’m curious so I’m going to do it next time. Flares aren’t binary - their magnitude starts off low, peaks and then ebbs. I and not sure at what point in that flow do they send an alert, and at what point in the flow do I notice things on my end.
WD0F** here. . Good explanation. As I have listened to a lot of the “space weather” junkies they all are saying we have 6 events coming our way and currently we are experiencing #3 this evening (Sat). The concern is that every solar event breaks down our atmospheric “shields” to the point where the 5/6th event “could” cause electrical damage to the grid.