By John Matson | Scientific American
Last night the sun unleashed a flash of radiation called a solar flare, along with a generous belch of ionized matter that is now racing toward Earth at thousands of kilometers a second. The solar storm front from the ionized blast, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), should arrive tomorrow morning, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). The forecasters called the event the strongest solar storm since 2005.
When a solar storm hits Earth, the impact can have a number of consequences, especially in Earth orbit and at high latitudes, where the planet’s geomagnetic shielding is thin. Solar storms can knock out satellites, cause blackouts, and force aircraft to avoid polar routes. Storms can also bring the aurora borealis, a.k.a. the northern lights, down to unusually low latitudes. (You can see a slideshow of recent low-latitude auroras here.)
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shut down your computers and electrical devices
My satellite link was occluded last night with about one minute to go in the game.
I missed the 3rd and 4th downs of the Giants just before the OT. Out about a minute.
I thought it was just the weather.
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More fear-mongering… oy vey…
Corrupt government, please come and save me from the cosmic rays…. please!