Colext/Macondo Cantina virtual de los COLombianos en el EXTerior -------------------------------------------------- Aquí hay un buen reporte acerca de lo que comenté. Se me olvidó considerar el efecto en los teléfonos celulares en los radios de onda corta... PANG============ Solar Threat: Massive Energy Headed Towards Earth http://space.com/scienceastronomy/solarsystem/geomagnetic_storm_010330.html By Robin Lloyd Science Editor posted: 02:09 pm ET 30 March 2001 Largest Sunspot in a Decade Erupts The largest sunspot group of the past 10 years has shot huge wads of magnetic particles and energy toward Earth that could produce electrical disruptions and glorious auroral displays through this weekend. The sunspot group and its resulting solar flare and eruptions developed Wednesday and early Thursday morning. Traveling at speeds in excess of a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) per hour and traversing the 93 million miles (149.7 million kilometers) from the Sun to Earth, the energy could reach our planet as soon as late Friday. It's a fast one, so it will be faster than the typical three-day trend," said Barbara Thompson, a solar scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "This eruption was from a sunspot group that is on the Sun. Sunspots are the most concentrated form of magnetic field on the Sun. These compact ones move faster. It was quiet for a whole month and now this. I can't believe how large that sucker was." On a scale ranging from 1 to 5, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Center (SEC) has given a ranking of 3 to the incoming storm. The size of the sunspot group, called sunspot 9393, is equivalent to the total surface area of 13 Earths. It is dangerous to look directly at the Sun, but some drivers report glimpsing sunspots of this size at sunset. Looking directly at the Sun without number-14 welder's glasses or analogous protection causes blindness. The flare and so-called coronal mass ejections (CME) generated by the sunspot group could deliver a double hit of charged particles, called plasma, to Earth's magnetic field. The first blast should come Friday, with the second following on Saturday. The state of solar weather prediction is no more refined than forecasts for weather on Earth. The exact arrival time of the solar storm is unknown. -------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] with UNSUBSCRIBE COLEXT as the BODY of the message. Un archivo de colext puede encontrarse en: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ cortesia de Anibal Monsalve Salazar
