Massive Aurora Due to Solar Flares

**tommo** · 02-01-2012 12:57 AM

Spaceweather.com Time Machine

Solar protons accelerated by this morning's M9-class solar flare are streaming past Earth. On the NOAA scale of radiation storms, this one ranks S3, which means it could, e.g., cause isolated reboots of computers onboard Earth-orbiting satellites and interfere with polar radio communications. An example of satellite effects: The "snow" in this SOHO coronagraph movie is caused by protons hitting the observatory's onboard camera.

ALMOST-X FLARE AND CME (UPDATED): This morning, Jan. 23rd around 0359 UT, big sunspot 1402 erupted, producing a long-duration M9-class solar flare. The explosion's M9-ranking puts it on the threshold of being an X-flare, the most powerful kind. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the flare's extreme ultraviolet flash:

This one taken in Norway.

Someone from Reddit posted this too

**LonelyTurtle** · 02-01-2012 01:23 AM

Wow it just covers everything under it in a veil of greenness. awesome

**Zhaylin** · 02-01-2012 01:27 AM

Does anyone else see the green one as an eagle

Beautiful pictures!

**tommo** · 02-01-2012 01:51 AM

Nope, I don't see an eagle lol

I guess this year would be the best time to go traveling to see them.
I think this has just confirmed my plans to abandon life plans for a while and go traveling

hehe

**khh** · 02-01-2012 02:03 AM

Originally Posted by tommo

This one taken in Norway.

Dude O__O Why didn't I see this?

**labyrint** · 02-01-2012 02:06 AM

Eagles head at least. Though also eagle like illusion of larger bird, but hard to see combine head and body.. guess it's ore dreamlike that way,, oh and a spirally picture of smaller phoenix birning (birth/burn)

EDIT (reason: seeing things

): Human/feline mask (seen somewhere in some drawing, animation or comic) and maybe elephants trunk

**Burke** · 02-01-2012 02:22 AM

I see the eagle

That's awesome! I've never seen northern lights/auroras in person but I've seen a lot of photos. They really are amazing.

**Solarflare** · 02-01-2012 02:39 AM

Thank you I do try my best.

**tommo** · 02-01-2012 03:28 AM

Originally Posted by khh

Dude O__O Why didn't I see this?

Guess you gotta look up at the sky more

Apparently Aurora can only be seen in some areas of Norway, do you get them there regularly?

**Arra** · 02-01-2012 04:00 AM

Oh god that is so beautiful.

**HeavySleeper** · 02-01-2012 04:16 AM

God, I wish I could see auroras where I live. But no, all we get is light pollution. *sigh*

**NoDaniel** · 02-01-2012 04:31 AM

The beauty ;__;
it's..it's too much omg i think i'm blind from the beauty

**khh** · 02-01-2012 08:27 AM

Originally Posted by tommo

Guess you gotta look up at the sky more

Apparently Aurora can only be seen in some areas of Norway, do you get them there regularly?

Yeah, here we get them whenever there's a little more than minimal activity. In Oslo, where I grew up, you only get them with major activity.

**tommo** · 02-01-2012 09:10 AM

Originally Posted by Dianeva

Oh god that is so beautiful.

Well, go on, you live (sortofnotreally) near Alaska

Originally Posted by khh

Yeah, here we get them whenever there's a little more than minimal activity. In Oslo, where I grew up, you only get them with major activity.

That's truly awesome, I'd definitely suggest nightly sky watching this year and maybe next due to the peak of the solar cycle.

Originally Posted by Heavy Sleeper

God, I wish I could see auroras where I live. But no, all we get is light pollution. *sigh*

Tell me about it.... I was down at the country after christmas last year and the sky was incredible, especially through the telescope.
Now I'm back in the suburbs I just look up and feel despair. Can barely even see the Milky Way.

**HeavySleeper** · 02-01-2012 03:49 PM

Originally Posted by tommo

Tell me about it.... I was down at the country after christmas last year and the sky was incredible, especially through the telescope.
Now I'm back in the suburbs I just look up and feel despair. Can barely even see the Milky Way.

You want to know something fucked up? I've never even seen the night sky in it's natural beauty. I live in the outskirts of my city, but even so I only see a few dozen stars on an average night. Maybe a few hundred on a really clear night. But I've never been able to look up at the sky and see it littered with thousands of stars. I've never really been far enough into the countryside where I could view things in complete darkness. It would be amazing to look up and see the Milky Way stretching across the sky.

**Original Poster** · 02-01-2012 04:13 PM

Yeah, it's one of the most spectacular works of art I've ever seen, just sitting there above my head at all times.

Shit, one of the best times I ever had was with two friends, we took a drive into the middle of no where, smoked a joint and just sat on his car and looked up.

It was also, coincidentally, a meteor shower that night but we didn't know until we saw them.

**tommo** · 02-02-2012 03:06 AM

Jeez Heavy, that's pretty sad....
Also sad is that one has to drive hours away to be free of all the light pollution.

I really think people would have a completely different outlook on life if we could see the night sky more clearly.
It just really drills in that we literally are in space already, and it's so HUGE. We don't even have to travel there.
We just have some gases floating around the outside of this rock. And the sunlight reflects off that, which is the only reason we can't see space all the time.

Also I had a dream last night of being in the country again and looking up at the sky. *sigh*

**labyrint** · 02-03-2012 04:51 AM

Originally Posted by Heavy Sleeper

You want to know something fucked up? I've never even seen the night sky in it's natural beauty. I live in the outskirts of my city, but even so I only see a few dozen stars on an average night. Maybe a few hundred on a really clear night. But I've never been able to look up at the sky and see it littered with thousands of stars. I've never really been far enough into the countryside where I could view things in complete darkness. It would be amazing to look up and see the Milky Way stretching across the sky.

I've seen Milky Way just a couple of times even though I live in quite spacey country (not so many ppl/mile). You have to really get far from big cities to see it (or have vast electricity blackout during cloudless night

)