Rachel Decker
The Paw Print
Residents in Norway were in for a real treat last week when the latest emission of solar flares contributed to the first of many brilliant northern lights sighting of the year. Many people are panicking over the promise of more solar flares, claiming it is a sign of the end of the world that was supposedly predicted by the Mayans that some believe will happen December of this year.
“The solar cycle is increasing,” said Tamas Gombosi, an expert on space weather from the University of Michigan. “We are going to get more storms. It’s not the end of the world, there is no Maya 2012 nonsense going on with these brilliant light shows.”
Ever since January 23, the earth has been receiving more and more of the flares from the sun. The strength of the flares are rated by scientists on a scale from Level S1 to Level S5, with S1 being the weakest gust of radiation from a solar flare, and S5 being the strongest.
It was a little known fact until just recently that these solar flares, also known as Coronal Mass Ejections (CME), cause amazing and spectacular northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis, in the night sky. The most recent sighting of these lights were so bright and prominent that they could be seen in Iceland, Scotland, Greenland, and even as far away as the British plains. Usually the lights are only visible to the surrounding area, but the recent aurora borealis was so bright and spectacular that it could be viewed from far distances.
“Once an eruption happens on the sun, even the biggest ones, we’ll have at least a days warning,” Gombosi adds. “The sun typically waxes and wanes in outburst on an 11-year scale, which can vary a few years on either side of that scale.”
The scientists that predicted this year’s flare were off by a mere thirteen minutes. That is very accurate as far as flare predictions go, and many are still in awe about how accurately the flare’s appearance was detected.
“We haven’t predicted the flares that exactly,” added Chamberlin. “They were only off by a little more than ten minutes. That is simply amazing.”
Last Friday, another flare was observed on the sun, so Gombosi says that there is a high chance for more northern lights sightings in the near future. Along with those lights, there might also be radio communication problems, and possibly some power outages, but nothing too worrisome, and definitely not something that hasn’t happened before.
“The sun is a mass of incandescent gas. It’s a gigantic nuclear furnace,” says Phillip Chamberlin, a Solar Dynamics Observatory scientist of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. “These eruptions happen all the time. And every now and then, a burst comes our way. It’s nothing new, and nothing to be worried about.”
Gombosi is predicting that as the year goes on, the light shows will get even more spectacular. Since there is very little threat from these flares, scientists say that the best thing to do would be to relax and, if someone happens to be near the Northern Lights, they should enjoy the show.
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