A very large and growing sunspot has appeared

Visualization of solar flare being ejected from the sun on November 3
courtesy NASA Solar Dynamics
Monster sunspot poses threat of significant solar storms

A major sunspot is presently emerging on the surface of the solar disk facing Earth. According to Jess Whittington at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), the huge and still growing sunspot is the most active part of the sun since 2005.

The area is called Region 1339 and is being referred to as a “benevolent monster.” 8.3 times bigger than Earth, it generated a solar flare which shot out a burst of charged particles yesterday but - this time - was not aimed at Earth.

However, this extremely active area of the sun will be facing earth for about two weeks. At this time there is no way to predict whether new flares will generate significant solar storms aimed towards Earth and, if so, whether they could result in geomagnetic storms capable of dire consequences on “life as we know it”. [...]

Read the whole thing, for embedded links and more.
     

Here comes the sun, in very High Definition

NASA Releases Stunning Images of the Sun

Astonishing new pictures that could help unlock the secrets of the sun have been released by NASA.

The dramatic videos and images -- 10 times clearer than high definition TV -- show giant flares and clouds of ionized gas erupting from the surface of the star.

One video captured a blast known as a coronal mass ejection, in which the same amount of material contained in the whole Mississippi River is ejected at one million miles per hour -- in 30 seconds.

The images were taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

The satellite, which carries four telescopes along with a plethora of other high-tech equipment, will examine the sun's magnetic field and its impact on the Earth's atmosphere and climate.

There are a bunch of new photos, checkout the slideshow.
     

Solar activity and it's disruption of GPS functions

Sunspot activity is becoming stronger than it's been in many years. During the past several years, GPS technology has been dramatically increasing in use. It will now be facing interference on a scale not seen before. Are we ready for it?


Solar flares set to wreak havoc on GPS signals

The sun's activity isn't usually a hot topic around these parts, but when it threatens to derail satellite navigation services around the world, it must surely take center stage. UK researchers have corroborated Cornell's 2006 warning that our solar system's main life-giver is about to wake up and head toward a new solar maximum -- a period of elevated surface activity and radiation. It is precisely that radiation, which can be perceived in the form of solar flares, that worries people with respect to GPS signaling, as its effects on the Earth's ionosphere are likely to cause delays in data transmission from satellites to receivers and thereby result in triangulation errors. Still, it's more likely to be "troublesome than dangerous," but inaccuracies of around 10 meters and signal blackouts that could last for hours are being forecast in the absence of any intervening steps being taken. So yes, you now have another reason not to trust your GPS too much.

Follow the link to the orginal post on Engadget, which has embedded links.


GPS set for problems from the Sun

Researchers say the Sun is awakening after a period of low activity, which does not bode well for a world ever more dependent on satellite navigation.

The Sun's irregular activity can wreak havoc with the weak sat-nav signals we use.

The last time the Sun reached a peak in activity, satellite navigation was barely a consumer product.

But the Sun is on its way to another solar maximum, which could generate large and unpredictable sat-nav errors.

The satellite navigation concept is embodied currently by the US GPS system and Russia's Glonass network, with contenders to come in the form of Europe's Galileo constellation and China's Compass system.

It depends on what is - at its root - a simple triangulation calculation.

A fleet of satellites circling the Earth are constantly beaming a radio signal with two bits of exceptionally precise information: where exactly they are, and at exactly what time.

A sat-nav receiver on Earth - or on a ship or plane - is equipped with a fairly precise clock and the means to collect signals from the satellites that happen to be in its line of sight.

It then works out, based on how long it took those signals to arrive, how far it is from each of those satellites. Some simple geometry yields its position.

• 1. Satellites advertise their exact position, and the precise time at which they are sending it

• 2. The signal travels through the outer atmosphere, the ionosphere; its speed depends on how much the Sun's radiation and particle winds are affecting the ionosphere's composition

• 3. A receiver on Earth determines how long the signals took to arrive from a number of satellites, calculating the position from the time differences


But those signals are incredibly weak and, as researchers have only recently begun to learn, sensitive to the activity on the Sun.

Solar flares - vast exhalations of magnetic energy from the Sun's surface - spray out radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from low-energy radio waves through to high-energy gamma-rays, along with bursts of high-energy particles toward the Earth.

The radiation or waves that come from the Sun can make sat-nav receivers unable to pick out the weak signal from satellites from the solar flare's aftermath.

There is little that current technology can do to mitigate this problem, with the exception of complex directional antennas used in military applications.

Sat-nav receivers will be blinded for tens of minutes, probably a few times a year at the solar maximum.

Charged up

A further complication comes from the nature of the outermost layer of the Earth's atmosphere, the ionosphere.

That is composed in part of particles that have ionised, or been ripped apart by radiation from the Sun, with the composition dependent on how much radiation is coming from the Sun at a given time. [...]

Read the whole thing for further explanation and details.


Another detailed article from the BBC is here:

Sat-nav devices face big errors as solar activity rises

It explains the problem well, and even offers some suggestions for how it might be coped with in some instances.
     

New Solar Probe to Launch Thursday

Launch of rocket with solar probe reset for Thursday

(CNN) -- NASA has postponed for one day the scheduled launch of a rocket carrying a solar probe.

The space agency plans to launch an Atlas V rocket carrying its Solar Dynamics Observatory, which it says will study the sun "in greater detail than ever before."

[...]

The agency says the observatory will provide a better understanding of the sun and its role in space weather events such as solar flares, which can wreak havoc on Earth.

The observatory is designed to deliver solar images with resolution 10 times better than high-definition television, according to NASA.

The five-year mission "will determine how the sun's magnetic field is generated, structured and converted into violent solar events like turbulent solar wind, solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections," according to the agency.

The solar wind, a stream of electrically charged particles flowing out from the sun, fills the entire solar system with charged particles and magnetic fields, according to NASA.

Solar flares are actual explosions in the sun's atmosphere, the largest of them equal to billions of one-megaton nuclear bombs. And Coronal Mass Ejections, or CMEs, are eruptions that launch solar material into space at a high rate of speed.

Such events can put astronauts at risk, as well as aircraft flying over Earth's North or South Poles, and can also disrupt satellite communications, navigational systems and power grids, NASA said. In 1969, for instance, a solar current knocked a power grid serving Quebec, Canada, off-line for nine hours. "That's a direct impact on life and society," said Richard Fisher, director of NASA's Heliophysics Division.

[...]

There's no way to predict space weather. Officials hope the Solar Dynamics Observatory can provide information to help change that.

"This is the most advanced spacecraft we've ever designed to study the sun and its dynamic behavior," Fisher said. The sun, he said, "has this trick of converting magnetic energy into other kinds of energy that can affect the Earth."

"I believe we're up to the point now where we can probably predict when something like this is more or less likely and you can at least take precautions," Fisher said about solar weather. A warning system, for example, could help power grid operators avoid an outage by taking some of the grid's load off or finding alternative configurations.

The sun's effect wasn't an issue for the Earth until the technological advances in electronics over the last hundred years, he said.

The observatory is "going to give us good awareness of the dynamics of the sun, and we're going to be able to make estimates on when we should take precautions with our satellites or with airline operations or with Department of Defense systems," Fisher said. "We have an increasing pressure on science to try and predict what's going to happen on the sun, and that's the scientific bent of this (SDO) satellite, is to try to get a handle on it." [...]

The solar storm they mention, affecting Qubec in 1969. I think they meant 1989 (see link below). The damage done to Quebec's power grid very nearly had a domino effect that came close to bringing down much of the power grid on the North American continent. A huge disaster that was only narrowly avoided.

This is very important solar research. We are continually becoming more and more dependent on advanced electronics, which are increasingly fragile and vulnerable to solar weather. We need a warning system, so we can take precautions to protect our electronic infrastructure. Failure is not an option.


Also see:

Solar Flare: The "Carrington Event" of 1859

The Solar Storm that hit Quebec in 1989

     

Where have all the sunspots gone, and why?

For the past 3 years, sunspot activity has been greatly reduced. I came across this article recently, that offers an explanation as to why this is so:

Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved?

June 17, 2009: The sun is in the pits of a century-class solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why.

At an American Astronomical Society press conference today in Boulder, Colorado, researchers announced that a jet stream deep inside the sun is migrating slower than usual through the star's interior, giving rise to the current lack of sunspots.

[...]

Howe and Hill found that the stream associated with the next solar cycle has moved sluggishly, taking three years to cover a 10 degree range in latitude compared to only two years for the previous solar cycle.

The jet stream is now, finally, reaching the critical latitude, heralding a return of solar activity in the months and years ahead.

"It is exciting to see", says Hill, "that just as this sluggish stream reaches the usual active latitude of 22 degrees, a year late, we finally begin to see new groups of sunspots emerging."

The current solar minimum has been so long and deep, it prompted some scientists to speculate that the sun might enter a long period with no sunspot activity at all, akin to the Maunder Minimum of the 17th century. This new result dispells those concerns. The sun's internal magnetic dynamo is still operating, and the sunspot cycle is not "broken."

Because it flows beneath the surface of the sun, the jet stream is not directly visible. Hill and Howe tracked its hidden motions via helioseismology. [...]

It shows how the current cycle has dragged on for a year longer than usual, but also goes on to explain why that is about to change soon. It also explains more about helioseismology, and NASA's upcoming launch of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), which will provide us with more information about the sun. Interesting stuff.