44 minutes ago, Howard Krausse said:

My "obscure/stupid" question:

I have been studying a phenomenon that needs an explanation but I have not seen any.

When a sunspot region has become active, beautiful plasma loops emerge. If the energy continues to rise, eventually a (hopefully) flare erupts nearby!

I have many questions about these plasma loops, but I have selected one.  Why are the loops always perfectly regular arches?  If I place some magnets on the floor of my room (I have done this experiment) such that the field lines create a smooth arc, and I then carry another magnet into this field, the original arc is disrupted and no longer describes an arc, but now a "wiggle".  By my analysis, the result is always the mathematical sum of the combined magnetic fields at each point along the field line.  The "surface" of the sun has powerful magnetic fields, and different regions of magnetism interact.  It seems to me that you should be able to see permutations in the arch of a loop.  The fact that the loops remain regular in shape as the fields swirl around implies that there is "pressure" from the inside of the loop, "inflating" it, as if it is a balloon.  This would have to always be greater than the random interactions of the loop with its surroundings.  Is this a reasonable way to think about it?

Howard

I suppose you mean here the frozen-in flux theorem. (Sparse) plasma is nearly perfectly conducting, maintaining the magnetic field. The source of the magnetism there is the loop itself.

18 hours ago, MJOdorczuk said:

I suppose you mean here the frozen-in flux theorem. (Sparse) plasma is nearly perfectly conducting, maintaining the magnetic field. The source of the magnetism there is the loop itself.

I am glad I asked this in the correct forum, as it actually seems to be a "stupid question" (based on a lack of fundamental knowledge).  The reason it was not obvious to me, and others might miss this too, is that the magnetic fields I played with in my living room were not plasma, and those loops on the sun are often imagined as if they were the invisible magnetic field lines, when the loop you are seeing is plasma.  So, as I understand it now, magnetic field lines themselves are "flexible" when in the presence of other magnetic fields (as I saw with my living room experiments), whereas plasma is subject to the frozen-in flux theorem and the loops seen on the sun are thereby not bothered by the swirling chaos around them.  The loops therefore maintain their shape (please correct me if I am still missing the point).

I will study Alfvén's theorem and see if I can come up with a more educated question!  Thank you.

Why are solar flares limited to 8 minutes from onset to peak? (in two-stage flares the duration can be doubled and CMEs are not included)

1 hour ago, sf-x said:

Why are solar flares limited to 8 minutes from onset to peak? (in two-stage flares the duration can be doubled and CMEs are not included)

There haven't been many long duration flares in the past month or 2 but if you look back in the archive you will see that some flares last for hours. We just have had mostly impulsive flares lately.

Here is one all the way on the left of the x ray plot from October that lasted for hours.

I don’t know if this is considered a SpaceWeather topic, in theory it is. Who can say anything about what is happening in the USA with UFOs? It has gone so far that even Trump spoke about it and said to shoot down UFOs. Even at the beginning of 2024, the media said that 2025 would be the year we met aliens. What do you think about this, experts - write about it. Also, can the Americans also see or hear something like this?

27 minutes ago, Денис Максименко said:

I don’t know if this is considered a SpaceWeather topic, in theory it is. Who can say anything about what is happening in the USA with UFOs? It has gone so far that even Trump spoke about it and said to shoot down UFOs. Even at the beginning of 2024, the media said that 2025 would be the year we met aliens. What do you think about this, experts - write about it. Also, can the Americans also see or hear something like this?

Eh, it's definitely not a space weather topic, only extremely marginally related at best. Personally I'd say it's just mass hysteria, people who have rarely looked at the sky or paid attention suddenly doing so because others are feeding into the hysteria. So far I've seen countless images of planes and helicopters being called drones, and just a couple of days ago a US state governor posted a video of Orion and some of the surrounding stars, angrily calling for action to be taken against those pesky "drones"; it's getting rather ridiculous if you ask me. I'll leave it at that personally, it's something that can be discussed more appropriately through other channels.

I enjoyed a meme being circulated here showing a guy chowing down on McDonald hamburgers with numerous drones behind him intent on delivering their cargoes. 

1 hour ago, hamateur 1953 said:

I enjoyed a meme being circulated here showing a guy chowing down on McDonald hamburgers with numerous drones behind him intent on delivering their cargoes. 

Have ya'll seen the season 3 finale of doctor who from 20 years ago? Maybe that's what they are lol !!!

p.s. did anyone notice the mysterious halo CME at around 1620 UTC today? I say mysterious because I don't know of any concurrent flares that could have caused it. @Jesterface23 @Parabolic @MinYoongi

Edited December 15, 2024Dec 15 by Cokelley

14 minutes ago, Cokelley said:

p.s. did anyone notice the mysterious halo CME at around 1620 UTC today? I say mysterious because I don't know of any concurrent flares that could have caused it.

There was a farside eruption over the southeast limb, maybe the same source of the full halo CME a few days ago. The region should be on our side of the disk in 5 or 6 days.

1 hour ago, Cokelley said:

Have ya'll seen the season 3 finale of doctor who from 20 years ago? Maybe that's what they are lol !!!

p.s. did anyone notice the mysterious halo CME at around 1620 UTC today? I say mysterious because I don't know of any concurrent flares that could have caused it. @Jesterface23 @Parabolic @MinYoongi

It was another farsided eruption and likely from the same region that produced the other one last week. Currently making a short video of it at the moment 🙂 

21 hours ago, Philalethes said:

Eh, it's definitely not a space weather topic, only extremely marginally related at best. Personally I'd say it's just mass hysteria, people who have rarely looked at the sky or paid attention suddenly doing so because others are feeding into the hysteria. So far I've seen countless images of planes and helicopters being called drones, and just a couple of days ago a US state governor posted a video of Orion and some of the surrounding stars, angrily calling for action to be taken against those pesky "drones"; it's getting rather ridiculous if you ask me. I'll leave it at that personally, it's something that can be discussed more appropriately through other channels.

Speaking of Orion, and also only slightly solar related, anyone else desperately hoping Betelgeuse goes supernova in our lifetime so we can experience one of the most incredible sights in the sky? It will apparently outshine the full moon!

I'm curious, is it really just a bad luck streak? With all the farsides flares? I mean I believe that it is, I'm not a conspiracy theorist with this kind of thing or anything, though my dad is and often echoes these conspiracy theories about planet X causing all the farside flares or whatever. And while I definitely don't believe THAT, after seeing this pattern of it constantly going silent when earthfacing and then firing on the limb or on the farside, this has to be some sort of statistical anomaly, right?? or is it explainable? So strange. Someone clear this up for me before I start believing in my dad's delusions 😂

3 hours ago, linkedwinters said:

I'm curious, is it really just a bad luck streak? With all the farsides flares?

The RNG gods nerfed us after May 11th (nerd humor). In reality the probability of activity being on either side of the sun is completely random. We'll get some form of activity on the earth facing disk at some point.

1 minute ago, Parabolic said:

The RNG gods nerfed us after May 11th (nerd humor). In reality the probability of activity being on either side of the sun is completely random. We'll get some form of activity on the earth facing disk at some point.

The earthside superflares may occur unexpectedly at any moment from a large AR.

 

-@faster328, 18 December 2024

Hi, I suppose this isn't such a stupid question 😂 but can anyone here explain  what caused the green line on the solar protons graph to jump yesterday? Was at around 18:00-19:00 UTC?

https://solarham.com/

30 minutes ago, Stella said:

Hi, I suppose this isn't such a stupid question 😂 but can anyone here explain  what caused the green line on the solar protons graph to jump yesterday? Was at around 18:00-19:00 UTC?

Likely the large farside CME being discussed.  See solarham for an awesome display btw!  Link above

what does nanotesla exprimate exactly?is it just the field strength or its direction too?

i heard someone talking about the 1972 stom saying weva had a change of up t 2000 nt per minute in canada

19 minutes ago, jensei said:

what does nanotesla exprimate exactly?is it just the field strength or its direction too?

i heard someone talking about the 1972 stom saying weva had a change of up t 2000 nt per minute in canada

It is just magnetic field strength or change, but it depends on the context where. Bt is total magnetic field at the place of measurement. For L1 (static point between Earth and Sun, some 1% distance from us) it is solar wind magnetic field, where usually we also look at Bz, or north-south component. If it gets negative, it is southern. You can also have some measurements around Earth, but they are not that interesting to a mere mortal usually. We also have lots of magnetometers around the Earth, where the magnetic field is 20-60 microtesla by default. Then we talk about deflection, or change in the specific components. Most often in the horizontal component. Not sure what 2000 nT per minute would mean here. If it would be in one minute, then maybe, but for some minutes, either oscillating or just going ahead, seems improbable.

NanoTeslas may inform you about the direction only by the sign if the specific component is given (Bx, By, Bz for space baased; Bn, Bl and a third one I do not remember now, for crossing the magnetopause, and Bh (horizontal), Bz (vertical) and D (horizontal declination) for the ground based.

6 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

https://solarham.com/

Likely the large farside CME being discussed.  See solarham for an awesome display btw!  Link above

I saw it this morning! Awesome!! 😀

9 hours ago, Parabolic said:

The RNG gods nerfed us after May 11th (nerd humor). In reality the probability of activity being on either side of the sun is completely random. We'll get some form of activity on the earth facing disk at some point.

If we just pray to RNGupiter every day I'm sure we'll get some geoeffective ones eventually.

6 hours ago, MJOdorczuk said:

Bn, Bl and a third one I do not remember now, for crossing the magnetopause

I believe the last one you're thinking of is B_M, in the LMN coordinate system that's typically used for the magnetopause, as discussed e.g. here.

On 12/16/2024 at 6:26 AM, Gojira Prime said:

Speaking of Orion, and also only slightly solar related, anyone else desperately hoping Betelgeuse goes supernova in our lifetime so we can experience one of the most incredible sights in the sky? It will apparently outshine the full moon!

Me!!  

I am also hoping the remnant outdoes Cygnus x-1 who is currently ( except for galactic centers) holding the estimated solar mass maximum at approximately 28 SM I think. 

Edited December 18, 2024Dec 18 by hamateur 1953

8 hours ago, jensei said:

what does nanotesla exprimate exactly?is it just the field strength or its direction too?

i heard someone talking about the 1972 stom saying weva had a change of up t 2000 nt per minute in canada

Very interesting.  That deviation was possibly the “ magnetic crochet “ as Tamitha Skov indicated during her discussion of the event that caused the inadvertent triggering of a mess of underwater sea mines.  Because that event was mostly North in BZ the compression caused by the arrival of that epic storm, we only received brief Aurorae but definitely experienced worldwide geomagnetic effects. 

2 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Very interesting.  That deviation was possibly the “ magnetic crochet “ as Tamitha Skov indicated during her discussion of the event that caused the inadvertent triggering of a mess of underwater sea mines.  Because that event was mostly North in BZ the compression caused by the arrival of that epic storm, we only received brief Aurorae but definitely experienced worldwide geomagnetic effects. 

exactly 

A friend sent me this photo taken at night, does anyone know what that rainbow arch might be?

15 minuten geleden, Manuel zei:

A friend sent me this photo taken at night, does anyone know what that rainbow arch might be?

*Edit: 

I might have read it wrong, is it even aurora-related you mean, or really just rainbow coloring? 🤣🙈

My tunnel-vision only has aurora in it. 😂

You might find these helpful!

This Aurora Fieldguide & Handbook is made by scientists and citizen scientists, ARCTICS,  with loads of examples and info. Love it! 😍

https://kherli.github.io/Aurora-Field-Guide-And-Handbook/

Edited December 18, 2024Dec 18 by Malisha Reuvekamp