Astronomers are watching the sun closely after it released a powerful flares Tuesday, some of the ejecta may be heading close to home:
(Space.com) — First-look data from Stereo-B are not sufficient to determine if the cloud is heading for Earth,” astronomer Tony Phillips wrote on his website Spaceweather.com, which monitors space weather events. “Our best guess is ‘probably, yes, but not directly toward Earth.’ A glancing blow to our planet’s magnetosphere is possible on March 8th or 9th.”
This flare is unlikely to be in the same class of the Carrington Event or others, but it could herald more to come as the sun is now near the peak of its activity cycle.
StevoR says
Thanks for this update.
For those who don’t alreday know a good primer via NASA & youtube on solar flare classes that helps put this one in perspective can be found here :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOXVZo7KikE
If that’s of any interest or help to folks as I hope it is.