Monster Sunspot Hurls Solar Flares Toward Earth

Ralph_McCormick · April 2, 2001, 3:42am

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** Monster Sunspot Hurls Solar Flares Toward Earth**

Sunday, April 01, 2001

By Deborah Zabarenko

        WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Four solar flares and a pair of powerful magnetic gas clouds spawned in a monster sunspot were headed for Earth and could affect power systems, satellites and some radio transmissions, a top space weather forecaster said.

        They might also provide a dazzling display of the northern lights if they arrived at night, said Gary Heckman, senior forecaster for the U.S. Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado.

        "They're headed our way," Heckman said in a telephone interview. "But these still aren't the barnburner events. ... It will tickle some power systems. Satellite operators will notice."

        The solar flares -- explosions in the sun's atmosphere -- and the fast-moving magnetic gas clouds, known as coronal mass ejections, were hurled at Earth from the biggest sunspot scientists have seen in the past decade.

        The sunspot was about 86,800 miles in diameter and had about 13 times the surface area of the Earth, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The spot is so big it can be seen unaided as long as filters are used to protect the eyes from damage, the NSF said in a statement.

        Sunspots are dark patches on the sun's surface caused by a concentration of distorted magnetic fields. Violent solar activity is believed to be caused by the release of magnetic energy.

        The first bit of stormy solar weather left the sun on Wednesday, and the first effects of it were expected to reach Earth late on Friday and continue through the weekend, Heckman said.

        The USGS, which monitors solar weather at a network of magnetic observatories around the world, said Earth's geomagnetic field "is expected to become quite disturbed" by this solar activity.

        "While geomagnetic storms give rise to the beautiful northern lights, they can also pose a serious threat for commercial and military satellite operators, power companies, astronauts, and they can even shorten the life of oil pipelines in Alaska by increasing pipeline corrosion," a USGS statement said.

        Heckman said it takes about two days from the time the sun fires off flares or throws out a coronal mass ejection until its effects can be felt on Earth, when a hot ionized gas of charged solar particles hits the Earth's magnetic field, causing fluctuations in it.

        The big sunspot has another week to go before it rotates away from Earth, but that could be plenty of time to cause mischief, Heckman said.

        "The monster sunspot's still there," he said on Friday afternoon. "That region (of the sun) has been storing energy for more than 24 hours. It's just building it up, so when it's released, there is the potential for a really large event there. ... It's rather ominous just sitting there for the last 24 hours."

        An image of Thursday's coronal mass ejections can be seen online at http://www.spaceweather.com.

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