Posted on Aug 07, 2012 09:18:10 AM | John Entwistle | 1 Comments
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Forecasters say Solar Max is due in the year 2013. When it arrives, the peak of 11-year sunspot cycle will bring more solar flares, more coronal mass ejections, more geomagnetic storms and more auroras than we have experienced in quite some time.
On the weekend of July 14, 2012, sky watchers around the world got a taste of things to come.
It was mid-Saturday in North America when a coronal mass ejection or "CME" crashed into Earth's magnetic field and triggered the most sustained display of auroras in years. For more than 36 hours, magnetic storms circled Earth's poles. Northern Lights spilled across the Canadian border into the United States as far south as California, Colorado, Kansas, and Arkansas. In the southern hemisphere, skies turned red over Tasmania and New Zealand, while the aurora australis pirouetted around the South Pole.
This lesson is a great extension to the NASA Explorer Schools featured lesson, Geometry: Space Math Problems—Solar Storms. To access this lesson, visit: the NASA Explorer Schools Virtual Campus website.
I'm scared and excited!