Miscellaneous questions/comments thread, just in case you are anxious about creating a topic!

[Christopher S.]

I know from first- and second- hand experience and accounts that going to a message board that's new to you and posting a question can potentially devastating results, i.e. ridicule for asking, a hit-or-miss half-explained answer, and/or other similar things like that. That will not happen here! At the very least, disorderly conduct will be acted upon.

So, you are absolutely free to express your ideas and ask questions on this section of the forum, but this thread has the following purpose:

Some questions are not necessarily worth an entirely separate thread and discussion. Most discussions usually fall in-line with the original topic without significant deviation. 

This is where we can deviate from original topics and answer any questions from visitors.

tl;dr: Come here to continue an off-topic discussion born of another topic. Use this thread for questions that don't quite warrant a separate discussion.

[rocketlizzy]

Hi,

We have had terrible internet for a while. I thought it was because we are all working from home. Our internet provider said  yesterday that we were having internet issues due to Sunspots. I thought those were located on the sun and we get effects from solar flares. I know very little on this subject but now I'm intrigued and love your website. Do you know if we are having a solar event that could interfere with a cable internet company's operation? What should I look for to determine this in the future. We are located at 30.3702, -86.1152. Best :)

 

[Christopher S.]

11 hours ago, rocketlizzy said:

Hi,

We have had terrible internet for a while. I thought it was because we are all working from home. Our internet provider said  yesterday that we were having internet issues due to Sunspots. I thought those were located on the sun and we get effects from solar flares. I know very little on this subject but now I'm intrigued and love your website. Do you know if we are having a solar event that could interfere with a cable internet company's operation? What should I look for to determine this in the future. We are located at 30.3702, -86.1152. Best

 

No chance that your internet outage/issues are caused by sunspot activity. You are correct in that solar flares can cause outages, but usually only large ones with an Earth-directed CME associated with them. We've not experienced that frequently for quite some time now - we've had much less than a dozen CMEs on the Earth-facing side of the Sun so far this year. The internet provider is, to no one's surprise, lying. Hopefully your situation in regards to that improves soon!

I wish I could claim that this is my website, lol. 

[helios]

Hi,

How comes, that at the impact of a CME at earth, the fastest particles never arrive first? (I don't have data to support this observation, only from memory).
Usually there is a shockfront, then the speed picks up for some hours or a day and after that the speed declines slowly.

I would explain this by turbulence within the CME-cloud (by electrostatic or -magnetic interaction?).
Which would cause secondary radiation (bremsstrahlung), could this be observed?

[Mckinnon]

Beans

[Christopher S.]

On 10/18/2020 at 3:54 AM, helios said:

Hi,

How comes, that at the impact of a CME at earth, the fastest particles never arrive first? (I don't have data to support this observation, only from memory).
Usually there is a shockfront, then the speed picks up for some hours or a day and after that the speed declines slowly.

I would explain this by turbulence within the CME-cloud (by electrostatic or -magnetic interaction?).
Which would cause secondary radiation (bremsstrahlung), could this be observed?

Interesting question. I have no idea from what angle to answer this, so I'll ask: What have you read that suggests what you said is true(the font I've put in bold above)?

On 10/18/2020 at 10:58 AM, Mckinnon said:

Beans

Chili

[helios]

13 hours ago, Christopher S. said:

Interesting question. I have no idea from what angle to answer this, so I'll ask: What have you read that suggests what you said is true(the font I've put in bold above)?

From almost two decades of observation of the diagrams like the ones this site, or here.
 

Here is an example that I've found via google images with peak velocity 10 hours after impact.

Maybe my question should be a bit more generic: How is it possible that the fastest particles ejected by a single event not arrive first. Judging by my basic understanding of physics, that requires an acceleration or deceleration on a part of the particles somewhere between sun and the probe.

A simplified assumption that all particles are ejected at the same moment at different velocities would create this curve:

Edited October 22, 2020 by helios

[Christopher S.]

I would posit that the leading "shock" effectively cuts a path through the IMF/media for the back-end of the ejected particles. These particles are exceeding escape velocity and would not decelerate as quickly as the above graph shows. In essence, the initial bow shock creates a "low-pressure" zone just behind that can cause following mass to speed up, or appear sped up. The same principle of physics occurs with troughs in terrestrial weather.