Biggest Sun Flare Ever Threatened Satellites

[Dover]

Biggest Sun Flare Ever Threatened Satellites


Dec. 15, 2004 —The most potent solar storms ever measured squeezed a buffer zone around the Earth, destroying the electronic circuitry of some satellites and sparking spectacular bursts of the Northern Lights, a study says.

The 10-day space tempest, in November 2003, was stirred by huge solar flares — mass ejections of highly energized particles blasted out from the sun — a few days earlier.

Astronomers writing in the journal Nature said the so-called Halloween Storm "compressed dramatically" the Van Allen belts, two magnetic belts which girdle the Earth and protect the planet from electron bombardment by trapping charged particles.

The most potent solar storms ever measured squeezed a buffer zone around the Earth, destroying the electronic circuitry of some satellites and sparking spectacular bursts of the Northern Lights, a study says. ...Cont'd

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/afp/20041213/sunstorm.html

[LeftCoast]

1. I remember a bunch of DUers talking about seeing the lights

I'm in the middle of a big city, so I didn't see them, but they appeared much farther south than most people had ever seen before.

[Old and In the Way]

2. I saw them.......it was the 1st time in years, too.

They were spectacular...from the northern horizon over my head....I'm on the 45th parallel.

[LeftCoast]

3. I'm really jealous!

I want to see the Norther Lights so bad!!!

[indigobusiness]

4. There hasn't been anything more awe-inspiring,

in my experience.

One night, in NDak., I was sitting in a car on a cold, clear winter's night. When, I noticed the snow brightening in a strange greenish light. I stuck my head out of the window and looked up. The sky was like an invisible funnel, with green curtains of light oozing down from a circular hole in the top of the sky. It continued until the majority of the sky was lit, clear to the horizon, in electric green curtains of mercurial light.

Awesome doesn't begin to describe it.

[LeftCoast]

5. I've always wondered how bright they are

Apparently, I'm fairly color blind. If the lights aren't bright, or are very subtle, I wonder if I'd see anything...

:(

[indigobusiness]

6. Most of the times I've seen them

they would start on the horizon, and grow and move like an organic display of colors. Moving in cloudlike forms of red and green and bluish hues, mostly. But quite bright and distinctive. I've seen them grow to be very large. But never like the first description. It was like daylight almost, but of an intense opaque green.

The night last November, lit up the Texas sky in a deep red transparent veil of watery light.

[LeftCoast]

7. Wow!

That sounds so cool. It sounds like I'd be able to see them too. Yipee! :)

[GAspnes]

8. check this site

http://www.northern-lights.no/