Monthly Archives: January 2012

X 2 Class Solar Flare and S2 Radiation Storm

Active Region 11402 located on the northwestern limb, unleashed a major X2 Solar Flare at 18:35 UTC. S2 level Radiation Storm threshold has been exceeded, R3 Level Radio Blackout, 100 MeV proton spike is in progress and a 10cm Radio Burst (TenFlare) was reported.

Sunspot 1402 is rotating onto the far side of the sun, so the blast site was not facing Earth. Nevertheless, energetic protons accelerated by the blast are now surrounding our planet, and a S2-class radiation storm is in progress.

Goddard Space Weather Lab’s analysists say the CME cloud raced away from the sun at 2500 km/s or 5.6 million mph.

Immediately after this flare a Full Halo coronal mass ejection (CME) was observed and components may brush the earths magnetic field Jan 30th.

This is the 7th largest in Solar Cycle 24!

Credits: SolarHam 

X6.9 – August 9 2011 (1263)
X2.2 – February 15 2011 (1158)
X2.1 – September 6 2011 (1283)
X1.9 – November 3 2011 (1339)
X1.9 – September 24 2011 (1302)
X1.8 – September 7 2011 (1283)
X1.7 – January 27 2012 (1402)
X1.5 – March 9 2011 (1166)
X1.4 – September 22 2011 (1302)
M9.3 – August 4 2011 (1261)

Source and author: spaceweather *thewatchers * SolarWatcher (youtube) solar flare

Blue spheres Fall From the Sky During Hail Storm in Bournemouth UK – Jan 26, 2011

Steve Hornsby from Bournemouth said the 3cm diameter balls came raining down late on Thursday afternoon during a hail storm.

He found about a dozen of the balls in his garden. He said: “[They're] difficult to pick up, I had to get a spoon and flick them into a jam jar.”

The Met Office said the jelly-like substance was “not meteorological”.

Mr Hornsby, a former aircraft engineer, said: “The sky went a really dark yellow colour.

“As I walked outside to go to the garage there was an instant hail storm for a few seconds and I thought, ‘what’s that in the grass’?”

‘No smell’

Walking around his garden he found many more blue spheres were scattered across the grass.

He said: “The have an exterior shell with a softer inner but have no smell, aren’t sticky and do not melt.”

Mr Hornsby said he was keeping the balls in his fridge while he tried to find out what they were.

Josie Pegg, an applied science research assistant at Bournemouth University, speculated that the apparently strange phenomena might be “marine invertebrate eggs”.

“These have been implicated in previous ‘strange goo’ incidents,” she said. “I’d have thought it’s a little early for spawning but I suppose we’ve had a very mild winter.

“The transmission of eggs on birds’ feet is well documented and I guess if a bird was caught out in a storm this could be the cause.” ”

http://youtu.be/sI25Dr8qMXY

Source and author: bbc.co.uk * sheilaaliens (youtube) spheres