25 July 2014

Carrington-class CME ~ Near-Miss Solar Storm...

A Carrington-class CME -- Coronal Mass Ejection or plasma burst -- narrowly missed Earth two years ago reports the Guardian's Maev Kennedy...
"The date of 23 July 2012 could have been the day the lights went out, along with suddenly not-so-smart phones, computers, satellite transmissions, GPS navigation systems, televisions, radio broadcasts, hospital equipment, electric pumps and water supplies. On that day an "extreme solar storm" did its best to end life on Earth as we know it. The sun forced out one of the biggest plasma clouds ever detected at a speed of 3,000km per second, more than four times faster than a typical solar eruption. Fortunately it missed. "If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces," said Daniel Baker, of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado."
Here's NASA's ScienceCast

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