The REAL problem achieves prominence

[ZOMBIE USER 6611]

The image that has Barb's attention is a solar prominence, a blast of highly charged sun material that tends to stream along the lines of the Sun's powerful magnetic field. The images on her display are likely much larger than the Earth.

It was only learned in the past three decades that the Sun's total radiation output increases during the sunspot maximum. For a very long time the opposite was held to be true.

Solar storms, associated with these prominences and sunspots, can wreak havoc with communications. A sunspot maximum essentially killed the CB radio craze in the 1970s, for example, and it never recovered from that.

2066 is approximately six 11-year cycles from the very recent maximum. While this is not strictly 11 years -- it ranges from about 8 to 13 -- it is 11 on average and 2066 is very plausible as a maximum.

Yes, I think that Barb has put her hoof on the problem.

[Baxtrr]

The image that has Barb's attention is a solar prominence, a blast of highly charged sun material that tends to stream along the lines of the Sun's powerful magnetic field. The images on her display are likely much larger than the Earth.

It was only learned in the past three decades that the Sun's total radiation output increases during the sunspot maximum. For a very long time the opposite was held to be true.

Solar storms, associated with these prominences and sunspots, can wreak havoc with communications. A sunspot maximum essentially killed the CB radio craze in the 1970s, for example, and it never recovered from that.

2066 is approximately six 11-year cycles from the very recent maximum. While this is not strictly 11 years -- it ranges from about 8 to 13 -- it is 11 on average and 2066 is very plausible as a maximum.

Yes, I think that Barb has put her hoof on the problem.

Hopefully she can inform people of the trouble spot before tempers flare. Then they can fix things and kick back with a Corona.



bax
(who can tolerate being the presence of puns only so long before getting involved, thereby perpetuating the carbon, er, VICIOUS cycle.)

[Quill]

Shades of Plymouth!

I hope Jack's temper doesn't flare...

[Baxtrr]

Shades of Plymouth!

Woo! Now THERE was a stinker of a show....

I hope Jack's temper doesn't flare...

Sorry, dude. Beat you by a mouse click. 8)

bax

[Kellogg]

Never underestimate the ability for a meeting of experts to come up with the wrong answer, and firmly believe that they're right.
Especially if someone's got a private agenda.

Actually, I kinda liked "Plymouth"
The premise was a bit of a stretch, but they were trying for a hard
science show, and that's not easy. If I recall correctly, one member
of the cast was an actual NASA Astronaut who played himself, but his
name escapes me at the moment...

http://us.imdb.com/Title?0102681

I would have liked to have seen more, but alas it's been written in big Neon lights, there will be no more Prowlers around Plymouth ever again.

[Nebulous Rikulau]

And here I was thinking that the fact that they only loaded the new OS onto one of the processors might have been the software problem.

Somebody said, "Mattress," and the other two processors crashed. The system didn't reboot because the one processor is still working, but the '2 out of 3 agreement' organization of the processors prevents it from communicating.

Nebulous Rikulau
*standing in a bucket* "And did those teeth... in ancient times..." 8)

[LaserBeams]

Hopefully she can inform people of the trouble spot before tempers flare. Then they can fix things and kick back with a Corona.

I hope Jack's temper doesn't flare...

I would have liked to have seen more, but alas it's been written in big Neon lights, there will be no more Prowlers around Plymouth ever again.

ACK! TAKING PUN DAMAGE! SHIELDS AT 10% AND FALLING!!!

[ZOMBIE USER 6611]

ACK! TAKING PUN DAMAGE! SHIELDS AT 10% AND FALLING!!!

It is because you can't Dodge LaserBeams.

[Icefox]

Hmm... Light takes 8 minutes to go from the sun to Earth. If I recall rightly, charged particles in solar wind move about 1/3 the speed of light. So you have something like 15 minutes between seeing a flare and "buttoning down for the storm". Since the probe is already almost to Jupiter, which is 5 AU away, the solar flare would probably take almost two hours to reach it.

In other words, if the flare has just hit Earth, it hasn't yet hit the probe. Your communications are out, but it's are still working. So you have about 60 minutes to generate a powerful enough signal to reach the probe through the interferance, giving it instructions, before its too late to outrun the flare. Chances are pretty good the probe'll recieve it, even if it doesn't have the power to reply.

Another thing... Flares tend to be rather directional, I think. If Jupiter is on a different side of the sun than Earth, the probe itself might not get hit at all. So you just have to hope it's computers are good enough to run the show by themselves for a while until things on Earth clear up...

[Kellogg]

Another thing... Flares tend to be rather directional, I think. If Jupiter is on a different side of the sun than Earth, the probe itself might not get hit at all. So you just have to hope it's computers are good enough to run the show by themselves for a while until things on Earth clear up...

Flares are directional? I didn't know that? I'd like to check.
It would make sence, but the cone of a flare sent out by the sun must
be huge to cover large swaths of orbit, such that the Earth gets caught
in them for days while we orbit through them. As the sun is rotating
simultaneously and throwing stuff out.

That's neat! Thanks Icefox! I'd love to comment further, but I don't want to give anything away.

Neat stuff!

Scott (supposes it's too late to deny that the flare is the problem now ) Kellogg

[ZOMBIE USER 6611]

Hmm... Light takes 8 minutes to go from the sun to Earth. If I recall rightly, charged particles in solar wind move about 1/3 the speed of light. So you have something like 15 minutes between seeing a flare and "buttoning down for the storm". Since the probe is already almost to Jupiter, which is 5 AU away, the solar flare would probably take almost two hours to reach it.

Light would reach Jupiter from the sun in about 43 minutes. This makes sense: it's a little over five times Earth's distance, and takes a little over five times "8 minutes" to get there.

In other words, if the flare has just hit Earth, it hasn't yet hit the probe. Your communications are out, but it's are still working. So you have about 60 minutes to generate a powerful enough signal to reach the probe through the interferance, giving it instructions, before its too late to outrun the flare. Chances are pretty good the probe'll recieve it, even if it doesn't have the power to reply.

The concept is good, but the speed variations are larger. However, that's making some assumptions:
(1) that Earth was hit by the solar storm and not Jupiter
(2) that they noticed it by light alone before the wave of charged particles hit.

Both of these seem a little shaky to me. They are looking at the virtual reality rendition from the local Lindy-copy, using data from the probe. Since Earth-based astronomers (and satellites in orbit) keep a close eye on Sun weather, this would not have snuck up on the LMT team. But, it's conceivable that they didn't spot the storm heading for Jupiter and the Lindbergh. As you pointed out, solar storms are directional.

Also, the Lindbergh is already in trouble. Its commications have failed, whereas some telemetry would have been likely to get through had the issue been just static from the solar storm. It seems that the particle wave, not just the light, has gotten there.

Here is a surprisingly good source of Sun information:
http://www.greatdreams.com/sun.htm

[Daniel Cougar]

Flares are directional? I didn't know that? I'd like to check. It would make sense, but the cone of a flare sent out by the sun must be huge to cover large swaths of orbit, such that the Earth gets caught in them for days while we orbit through them. As the sun is rotating simultaneously and throwing stuff out.

Flares are directional, they are also very large. SciAm had an article this year on a solar storm. The Solar Max satellite would provide the first warning at the L1 libation point when it spotted the radial discharge, but the scientists monitering the satellite wouldn't know which side of the sun the discharge had originated from until the Solar Max was struck by particles itself.

I'm a bit busy now, but I'll dig the article up for all of us later.

[Icefox]

Both of these seem a little shaky to me. They are looking at the virtual reality rendition from the local Lindy-copy, using data from the probe. Since Earth-based astronomers (and satellites in orbit) keep a close eye on Sun weather, this would not have snuck up on the LMT team. But, it's conceivable that they didn't spot the storm heading for Jupiter and the Lindbergh. As you pointed out, solar storms are directional.

Also, the Lindbergh is already in trouble. Its commications have failed, whereas some telemetry would have been likely to get through had the issue been just static from the solar storm. It seems that the particle wave, not just the light, has gotten there.

I was just saying that it might be possible, not that it was probable. My main point was that the problem might be on Earth's side of the communications loop, not the probe's.

[ZOMBIE USER 6611]

I was just saying that it might be possible, not that it was probable. My main point was that the problem might be on Earth's side of the communications loop, not the probe's.

I understood. We keep a surprisingly good eye on our local star -- or at least the said facing the Earth. Here's a real-time weather report for the next vacation you might be planning on the Photosphere:
http://www.sel.noaa.gov/SWN/index.html
(it's perhaps safer to go at night...)
However, all of this information is fixated on the view from Earth. We don't, as yet, pay too much attention to blasts headed off in other directions, although we do have solar-polar orbit satellites capable of observing some of this.

I'd guess that we'd have seen this coming, if it was coming for us. But in this case, I think that our gang overlooked the solar storm possibility aimed at the probe.

Incidentally, we'd already determined that the angular separation between Earth and Jupiter was more-or-less 90 degrees at this point, and the outbound solar radiation tends to curve around as it heads out (an effect somewhat like a spiral galaxy arm). It's entirely possible that the flare involved originated on a part of the Sun not visible from Earth.

Perhaps tomorrow we will learn how close our speculations are to what is happening. Or, perhaps, we'll still be stuck in meetings...

[Daniel Cougar]

I'm a bit busy now, but I'll dig the article up for all of us later.

Sorry, when digging and found it was no longer available online.

[ZOMBIE USER 6611]

Sorry, when digging and found it was no longer available online.

I suspect that this is what you were looking for:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articl ... =1&catID=2

Or, perhaps:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articl ... =1&catID=1
(This one has a nice graphic.)

There is a response to a letter that annoys me (it involves solar radiation's relatively high correlation with "global warming"). The respondent is cherry picking data and doing other misleading stunts before admitting that, yes, there is substantial correlation, but because mankind is evil the sun is likely to have less effect than man will have on global warming "in the future".

I'll address this in my LiveJournal.

[Kellogg]

Thanks guys! The information here is really useful!

Scott

[Daniel Cougar]

Sorry, when digging and found it was no longer available online.

I suspect that this is what you were looking for:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articl ... =1&catID=2

Or, perhaps:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articl ... =1&catID=1
(This one has a nice graphic.)

No, it was a longer article about the same event that when into more detail about it, plus talked about upcoming changes in space forcasting (and lotsa nice graphics). I have the issue somewhere around here, but it's hard to find stuff when you use a tame black hole as a filing system.

[Baxtrr]

I have the issue somewhere around here, but it's hard to find stuff when you use a tame black hole as a filing system.

Please forgive a gentle tease here, DC, but this sentence (and the one in your last post) make for a funny juxtaposition with your signature.

"I am of Mountain Lion. What I hunt, I find. Unless I've filed it, in which case I'm kerhosen."



bax

[Kellogg]

I think Dan and I use the same filing system.

Scott