Bad days to detect?

[grubstake]

On the 7th and 8th of June we are going to be hit by mass solar flares, magnetic storms. I think on those days you will see an increase in unstable detectors. Here's a link : http://www.spaceweather.com Grubstake

[ARGONAUTE]

I think there is not much happening... you'd need to see an M or X class flare or CME (Coronal Mass Ejection).

[GlennM]

I'ts not so much the flare that get's us, it's the magnetosphere's activity AFTER the flare that'll wack out your electronics.

Although, I would expect detectors to work BETTER in certain areas, depending on the sunny side of the Earth at a given time. Am I off base here?

[grubstake]

If you click on the link I put above, you'll see NASA and others are worried that this could be a new bigger cycle of the sun that hasn't happen for years, and they are planning on lot of stuff happening, to electronic's and electric grids. I know it plays hell with TV. Grubstake

[ARGONAUTE]

I'm quite well aware about the solar cycle and the new solar maximum cycle approaching. I've also posted on that topic earlier.

At the moment there is still very limited sunspot activity, and it is something we really take for granted. Grubstake, that spaceweather links is a great one, I follow it regularly, but it's still very little activity at the moment. I remember when there were absolutely massive sunspots, many years ago.

There is an 11 year cycle and a much longer one, and they combine together periodically to make either very weak troughs or strong maximums. We have yet to see a severe one. This is especially important, since often the damage can be very severe (ie. knock out power grids, GPS, electrical circuits etc). We have built so much of our society, so recently and on technology that is not hardened for a strike.

Some links below to the NewScientist

Plasma CME and 11 year sunspot cycle

GPS disruption

new solar cycle

sun dynamics

Storm alert article in NewScientist...

23 March 2009 by Michael Brooks

"IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.

A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation's infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event - a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.

It sounds ridiculous. Surely the sun couldn't create so profound a disaster on Earth. Yet an extraordinary report funded by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in January this year claims it could do just that."

keep reading here.....

solar storms

[ARGONAUTE]

Grubstake, perhaps you are right. Sunspot 1078 and 1079 are growing.

Spaceweather

Also if you're in Australia in 3 days time, you get to see a manmade meteor.

The Japanese Asteroid sample return, Hayabusa, should light up the sky over South Australia.

Hayabusa Asteroid sample return

[grubstake]

Anyone Remmeber seeing the comet kahotek ? {spelling} anyway, it was very easy to see with the naked eye, I was detecting the beach in Monterey, one night, it was very impressive. A once in a life time event. Grubstake