Powerful sun storm knocks out radio transmissions across North America

[Judi Lynn]

By Tereza Pultarova published about 10 hours ago

The sun unleashed its second X-flare in less than three days — and we should brace for more such activity.


A powerful solar flare disrupted radio and navigation signals across North America. on Monday (Aug. 7) and prompted space weather forecasters to issue warnings because of energetic particles hitting Earth.

The flare, classified as an X1.5, was the 20th X flare — the most potent solar flare category — of the current 11-year solar cycle, which will reach its maximum next year.

Solar flares are energetic flashes of radiation that explode from magnetically dense, cool regions on the sun's surface known as sunspots. Traveling at the speed of light, the photons from these flares arrive at our planet in eight minutes. As the radiation from the flares interacts with particles in Earth's ionosphere, the region of the atmosphere at altitudes between 50 and 400 miles (80 and 650 kilometers), it supercharges them. These changes then affect radio and satellite signals that pass through this region.



A powerful solar flare erupted from the sun in August 23. (Image credit: NASA)

According to solar physicist Keith Strong, the blackout caused by the Monday flare was a strong category 3 on the five-point scale developed by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

More:
https://www.space.com/x-class-solar-flare-radio-blackout-august-2023?utm_source=notification

[3Hotdogs]

1. See? That's another reason to vote for Trump.

He will nuke the Sun and teach it a lesson and there won''t be no more of that flare bullshit.

[BWdem4life]

2. What would happen if we fired all nuclear missiles on earth at the sun?

They would all come crashing back to Earth, as they have nowhere near enough fuel to even reach orbit around the Earth, let alone transfer to an orbit which hits the sun. Doing that actually requires a huge amount of energy and a big spacecraft.
But let's say we took all the nuclear missiles and mounted them on spacecraft capable of reaching the sun, then launched them? Ok, then what? Just crash them into the sun? Sure, the sun would vapourise them and the gases and plasma they became would merge with the outer layers of the sun. We wouldn't even see anything from Earth. Boring!
What I think you're getting at is what if we detonated them, right? Nothing would happen.
The world's entire nuclear arsenal adds up to about 3 Gigatons of smash. For the scientifically minded that's 1.25x10^19 joules. In one second the sun produces 3.8×10^26 joules.
What does that mean? It means that the world's entire nuclear arsenal is equivalent to one ten millionth of a second of the sun's power output. Or put another way, we the sun would have to absorb a variation of one ten millionth extra energy for that second, then it would be back to business as usual. From Earth you wouldn't even notice the tiny momentary increase in light from the sun.
Obviously the actual physics are going to be more complex than this kind of napkin-sized estimate, but I'm pretty sure the sun would absorb that tiny variation without blinking. If you exploded every nuke in one spot you might disrupt the sun's plasma enough to make a noticeable blemish that might take some time to go away. Maybe.

https://www.quora.com/What-would-happen-if-we-fired-all-nuclear-missiles-on-earth-at-the-sun

Just in case anyone was wondering..

[3Hotdogs]

3. Well, if ya think that won't work, we can always aim Jewish space lasers at the Sun.

That'll teach it a lesson.