{"id":24777,"date":"2010-05-01T17:20:12","date_gmt":"2010-05-01T22:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=24777"},"modified":"2010-05-01T17:30:02","modified_gmt":"2010-05-01T22:30:02","slug":"solar-dynamics-observatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/solar-dynamics-observatory\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar Dynamics Observatory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"SDO<\/a>
SDO First Light Sill Image, NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Carol van Strum<\/strong><\/p>\n

On September 2, 1859, at 1:30 a.m., sailors on clipper ships in the Pacific witnessed a horrifying phenomenon: the waters of the ocean had turned blood red. The color was reflected from the even more horrifying sight of a blood red sky. Over nearly the entire globe, the brilliant red lights of the rare aurora, usually viewed only near polar regions, astonished and frightened observers. The shifting, startling lights did more than astonish and frighten people:<\/p>\n

The beguiling lights had disabled the telegraph system, wiping out communications across the world. For days, nature refused to allow these arteries of information to flow freely. It was as if today\u2019s Internet had suddenly, inexplicably shut down. Worse still, the aurora also threatened life and limb.
\nIn Philadelphia, a telegrapher was stunned by a severe shock. In some offices the equipment burst into flames. In Bergen, Norway, the operators had to scramble to disconnect the apparatus, risking electrocution. On top of this, compasses spun uselessly under the grip of the aurora, disrupting global navigation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"First<\/a>
First light image from Solar Dynamics Observatory, NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Thanks to amateur astronomer Richard Carrington’s observations of sunspots made the day before this planet-wide disaster, the connection between solar behavior and the aurora was discovered, along with the uneasy realization that the sun’s activities could disrupt and even destroy human technologies.<\/p>\n

Sunspots with the ferocity of the \u201cCarrington Event\u201d of 1859 have not so far been equaled or even approached, but astronomers and space scientists are keenly aware of the inevitability of them occurring \u2013 and the horrendous damage they would cause to every aspect of modern electronic technology; a small forewarning of such damage occurred in 1989, when solar flares damaged a major power station in Canada, blacking out millions of North American homes.<\/p>\n

To learn more about the star we call our sun, NASA launched its Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) into geosynchronous orbit on February 21, 2010. Even the launch of the SDO satellite produced a unique event: the shock waves of the rocket disrupted the ice crystals of a sundog in the upper atomosphere, causing it to vanish in films of the launch.<\/p>\n

\"Solar<\/a>
Solar Dynamics Observatory Satellite, NASA.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The mission of the satellite is to gather photographic, magnetic and seismic data of solar surface and subsurface events on a continuous basis (except during two eclipse seasons annually, and briefer lunar shadow events). The goal is to learn enough to predict solar flares and coronal mass ejections that can disable satellites, cause power grid failures, disrupt GPS communications, affect terrestrial climate, and generally wreak havoc on earth.<\/p>\n

The SDO began beaming images to earth in April. The first pictures showed in glorious detail material streaming away from sunspots on the sun’s roiling, constantly erupting surface.<\/p>\n

Films of a magnetic filament erupting on April 19th are even more dramatic. \u201cWe can see a billion tons of magnetized plasma blasting into space while debris from the explosion falls back onto the sun surface,\u201d a NASA team member reports.<\/p>\n

It’s too soon for any predictive data, but the images and movies so far are as astonishing and almost as scary as the blood-red seas of 1859.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Carol van Strum On September 2, 1859, at 1:30 a.m., sailors on clipper ships in the Pacific witnessed a horrifying phenomenon: the waters of the ocean had turned blood red. The color was reflected from the even more horrifying sight of a blood red sky. Over nearly the entire globe, the brilliant red lights … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24777"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24777\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}