Once upon a time.... in a Reality far away... there was a Great Wall

[Sgt.Rocknroll]

As I've gotten older and now retired, I find my interest has waned somewhat. I get up early every morning, with every intention of looking for moon anomalies or working on the 'business' or swearing in going to tackle that next project, only to find by noon I'm ready to each lunch and take a nap. Then my grandkids stop by and I forget about what I was doing in the morning.
I find I'm contemplating my own mortality when I realize i'm closer to the end than the beginning.

[biggles]

As I've gotten older and now retired, I find my interest has waned somewhat. I get up early every morning, with every intention of looking for moon anomalies or working on the 'business' or swearing in going to tackle that next project, only to find by noon I'm ready to each lunch and take a nap. Then my grandkids stop by and I forget about what I was doing in the morning.
I find I'm contemplating my own mortality when I realize i'm closer to the end than the beginning.

Feel you on that Sarge, tired beyond words, But your getting closer to a new beginning which is a whole lot better. xo

[The Seeker]

As I've gotten older and now retired, I find my interest has waned somewhat. I get up early every morning, with every intention of looking for moon anomalies or working on the 'business' or swearing in going to tackle that next project, only to find by noon I'm ready to each lunch and take a nap. Then my grandkids stop by and I forget about what I was doing in the morning.
I find I'm contemplating my own mortality when I realize i'm closer to the end than the beginning.

We are still  youing men, Sarge, naught but babes in the woods on the grand scale of things  and I find it is my state of mind and mindset that does more and means more than anything...

We all volunteer to come here, and still have much journeying on the long road home; I focus on what lies before me today, my grandkids, and smile at what they do; there is too much for me to be positive about...

And don't worry about the expiration date on that meatsuit; it is just a container 

Seeker

[zorgon]

Just some food for thought  while we are here... The Hopi Elders believe that there will be a day of purification, and those true to the ancient ways will move to a different reality...

Well I for one am true to the Ancient Ways   And am ready to return to the Realm of Faerie

Happy Walpurgisnacht

Also, a CME5 event, if it is a direct hit, would take out all the satellites, probably utterly destroy the power grid, virtually everything electronic not shielded in a Farraday cage, and quite possibly deplete and strip a large percentage of the atmosphere...

And after that  how long do you thing the Snowflakes, Valley Girls, Nerds and Geeks will survive without cell phone or wifi?

A week? 

[micjer]

And the preppers won't last long if they don't have firearms to fend off the non-preppers that do.

Give me your food or I'll blow your head off mentality.

And move away from down wind of the nuke plants that will overheat.  Multiple fukushima events once backup generators run out of fuel to keep spent fuel rods cool.

[Sgt.Rocknroll]

Feel you on that Sarge, tired beyond words, But your getting closer to a new beginning which is a whole lot better. xo

I'm not sad or fearful of what's to come. Call it excited and anxious wonderment.....

[space otter]

to borrow  my mother's words (at 95)

I'm glad i'm this old...



i think a whole lot of us are more than ready to move on..even while questioning what the heck we will move on too....sigh
from my understanding (limited thou it is) here we have a choice next dimension not
we choose here  what comes next...and that's how the heaven and hell thing got started
i'm not choosing clouds and harps but kind and calm


blessed beltane to all

[ArMaP]

Also, a CME5 event, if it is a direct hit, would take out all the satellites, probably utterly destroy the power grid, virtually everything electronic not shielded in a Farraday cage, and quite possibly deplete and strip a large percentage of the atmosphere...

After reading some texts about CMEs I doubt it would have that effect, as the effect on power lines is a result of the low frequency of such events, so they can only induce electric currents on long conductors, in the same way alternate current cannot be used on very long power lines, as they would turn into radio emitters.

PS: I couldn't find any definition for what is a CME5 event, do you have a source?

[space otter]

does this help?


https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/the-difference-between-flares-and-cmes

CME Week: The Difference Between Flares and CMEs



...............................

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-s-solar-dynamics-observatory-captured-trio-of-solar-flares-april-2-3

April 3, 2017
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Captured Trio of Solar Flares April 2-3
The sun emitted a trio of mid-level solar flares on April 2-3, 2017. The first peaked at 4:02 a.m. EDT on April 2, the second peaked at 4:33 p.m. EDT on April 2, and the third peaked at 10:29 a.m. EDT on April 3. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured images of the three events. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.

further down the page


April 26, 2017
Scientists Propose Mechanism to Describe Solar Eruptions of All Sizes
From long, tapered jets to massive explosions of solar material and energy, eruptions on the sun come in many shapes and sizes. Since they erupt at such vastly different scales, jets and the massive clouds — called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs — were previously thought to be driven by different processes.

Scientists from Durham University in the United Kingdom and NASA now propose that a universal mechanism can explain the whole spectrum of solar eruptions. They used 3-D computer simulations to demonstrate that a variety of eruptions can theoretically be thought of as the same kind of event, only in different sizes and manifested in different ways. Their work is summarized in a paper published in Nature on April 26, 2017.


Follow the evolution of a jet eruption in this video, which uses a 3-D computer simulation of the breakout model to demonstrate how a filament forms, gains energy and erupts from the sun.
Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/ARMS/Genna Duberstein, producer
Download this video in HD formats from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio

The study was motivated by high-resolution observations of filaments from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, and the joint Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency/NASA Hinode satellite. Filaments are dark, serpentine structures that are suspended above the sun's surface and consist of dense, cold solar material. The onset of CME eruptions had long been known to be associated with filaments, but improved observations have recently shown that jets have similar filament-like structures before eruption too. So the scientists set out to see if they could get their computer simulations to link filaments to jet eruptions as well.

"In CMEs, filaments are large, and when they become unstable, they erupt," said Peter Wyper, a solar physicist at Durham University and the lead author of the study. "Recent observations have shown the same thing may be happening in smaller events such as coronal jets. Our theoretical model shows the jet can essentially be described as a mini-CME."

Solar scientists can use computer models like this to help round out their understanding of the observations they see through space telescopes. The models can be used to test different theories, essentially creating simulated experiments that cannot, of course, be performed on an actual star in real life.

The scientists call their proposed mechanism for how these filaments lead to eruptions the breakout model, for the way the stressed filament pushes relentlessly at — and ultimately breaks through — its magnetic restraints into space. They previously used this model to describe CMEs; in this study, the scientists adapted the model to smaller events and were able to reproduce jets in the computer simulations that match the SDO and Hinode observations. Such simulations provide additional confirmation to support the observations that first suggested coronal jets and CMEs are caused in the same way.

"The breakout model unifies our picture of what's going on at the sun," said Richard DeVore, a co-author of the study and solar physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "Within a unified context, we can advance understanding of how these eruptions are started, how to predict them and how to better understand their consequences."

The key for understanding a solar eruption, according to Wyper, is recognizing how the filament system loses equilibrium, which triggers eruption. In the breakout model, the culprit is magnetic reconnection — a process in which magnetic field lines come together and explosively realign into a new configuration.

In stable conditions, loops of magnetic field lines hold the filament down and suppress eruption. But the filament naturally wants to expand outward, which stresses its magnetic surroundings over time and eventually initiates magnetic reconnection. The process explosively releases the energy stored in the filament, which breaks out from the sun's surface and is ejected into space.

Exactly which kind of eruption occurs depends on the initial strength and configuration of the magnetic field lines containing the filament. In a CME, field lines form closed loops completely surrounding the filament, so a bubble-shaped cloud ultimately bursts from the sun. In jets, nearby fields lines stream freely from the surface into interplanetary space, so solar material from the filament flows out along those reconnected lines away from the sun.

"Now we have the possibility to explain a continuum of eruptions through the same process," Wyper said. "With this mechanism, we can understand the similarities between small jets and massive CMEs, and infer eruptions anywhere in between."

Confirming this theoretical mechanism will require high-resolution observations of the magnetic field and plasma flows in the solar atmosphere, especially around the sun's poles where many jets originate — and that's data that currently are not available. For now, scientists look to upcoming missions such as NASA's Solar Probe Plus and the joint ESA (European Space Agency)/NASA Solar Orbiter, which will acquire novel measurements of the sun's atmosphere and magnetic fields emanating from solar eruptions.

Banner image: A long filament erupted on the sun on Aug. 31, 2012, shown here in imagery captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO

By Lina Tran
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

Last Updated: April 26, 2017
Editor: Rob Garner

[space otter]

more info  ..  after the fact..hummmmmmmmmmm

http://www.unknowncountry.com/news/solar-storm-may-have-caused-months-power-failures

A Solar Storm may have Caused This Month's Power Failures
Saturday, April 29, 2017


A series of power outages across the continent that occurred on April 21 may have been caused by a geomagnetic storm. Coordinated cyberattacks were initially blamed for the events, although a fire caused by an overloaded circuit breaker in one of the major outages ruled out that theory. However, it is possible that a geomagnetic storm may have caused the near-simultaneous outages, as there had been an ongoing solar storm at the time.

While the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) reported outages in Antioch, Brentwood, Hayward, Mountain View, Oakland, San Jose, San Leandro, Tracy, and Walnut Creek, the largest outages were experienced by New York City and San Francisco. Outages in New York began around 7:20 AM, interrupting the morning commute in the city's subway system. San Francisco went down four and a half hours later, and was hit much harder, with 90,000 customers affected for over 7 hours, effectively paralyzing the city. While the cause of New York's outage is still a mystery, San Francisco's outage was due to a fire at a substation, caused by an overloaded circuit breaker.

At the time, a moderate (G2) geomagnetic storm watch was underway, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center. Despite the storm itself only being listed as "moderate", NOAA's alert does warn that one of the effects can be "Induced Currents - Weak power grid fluctuations can occur." This means that the increase in geomagnetic activity brought about by the storm can cause a buildup of excess electricity in power grids: while most systems will be able to handle energy spikes from such an otherwise moderate storm, systems that have been weakened could be susceptible to failure, and overload a potentially worn-out circuit breaker, as had happened in San Francisco. On the same day, a town in Ontario, Canada, also experienced a community-wide power outage, caused by a "pole fire", according to the local utility.

Unfortunately, larger storms, such as 1859's Carrington Event, have the potential to cause catastrophic, nation-wide power failures, resulting in power grid equipment failures that could take months to correct. Whitley Strieber outlines the dangers -- and what needs to be done to avert them -- in his 2012 ebook Solar Flares: What You Need to Know.
Image Credit: X1.1 class flare from the lower right of the sun on July 6, 2012...This flare caused a radio blackout...NASA via Wikimedia Commons

News Source: kitchener.com   inverse.com   swpc.noaa.gov

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