Am I alone in finding e-mails like this almost completely undecipherable?
I'm afraid,
reading them when I do first thing in the morning, unless they are
explained rather better than a "flare being an X 28" I just skip over these
mails and delete them.

Please would sometime explain the following report to me in simple English:

"Friday, November 07, 2003

Jonathan Marks has passed on this announcement from the European Space
Agency:

It has just been announced that the massive solar X-ray flare which occurred
on 4 November was, at best estimate, an X28. There is still a small chance
this will be revised by a small amount, but it is now official: We have a
new number 1 X-ray flare for the record books, the most powerful in recorded
observational history.

For more information, see
http://www.esa.int/export/esaSC/SEMN...D_index_0.html

http://medianetwork.blogspot.com/ "

Many thanks

Mike

I never pay to much attention to that stuff either. Generally if I want to check
conditions I just check the following page:

http://www.n3kl.org/

And then go from there. The only other propagation thing I ever use is the '28
day rule', i.e., if conditions are very good on a certain day, then in many
instances they will be very good 28 days later... sometimes! :-)

Steve
Holland, MI

Drake R7, R8 and R8B
http://www.iserv.net/~n8kdv/dxpage.htm


Mike Terry wrote:

Am I alone in finding e-mails like this almost completely undecipherable?
I'm afraid,
reading them when I do first thing in the morning, unless they are
explained rather better than a "flare being an X 28" I just skip over these
mails and delete them.

Please would sometime explain the following report to me in simple English:

"Friday, November 07, 2003

Jonathan Marks has passed on this announcement from the European Space
Agency:

It has just been announced that the massive solar X-ray flare which occurred
on 4 November was, at best estimate, an X28. There is still a small chance
this will be revised by a small amount, but it is now official: We have a
new number 1 X-ray flare for the record books, the most powerful in recorded
observational history.

For more information, see
http://www.esa.int/export/esaSC/SEMN...D_index_0.html

http://medianetwork.blogspot.com/ "

Many thanks

Mike

"Mike Terry" wrote:

Am I alone in finding e-mails like this almost completely
undecipherable?

Please would sometime explain the following report to me
in simple English:

Sure. Here goes:

It has just been announced that the massive solar X-ray
flare which occurred on 4 November was, at best estimate,
an X28. There is still a small chance this will be revised
by a small amount, but it is now official: We have a new
number 1 X-ray flare for the record books, the most powerful
in recorded observational history.

An X-ray flare is a sudden, rapid, and intense variation in brightness,
with an associated X-ray component (every flare, to my knowledge, will
therefore be an X-ray flare - hence, a solar flare is the same thing as an
X-ray flare). A solar flare occurs when magnetic energy that has built up
in the solar atmosphere is suddenly released. Radiation is emitted across
virtually the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves at the long
wavelength end, through optical emission to x-rays and gamma rays at the
short wavelength end.

When a flare's intensity is determined, it is classified using a letter,
followed by a number, which tells us the specific intensity of the flare.
X-ray flare intensity is measured in units of power per area or Watts per
meters squared. Each letter (A, B, C, M or X) represents a certain numeric
value and the numbers following the letter in the flare classification
multiply that value. The numeric values of the letter classes a

A = 1.0x10E-8 (W m-2)
B = 1.0x10E-7 (W m-2)
C = 1.0x10E-6 (W m-2)
M = 1.0x10E-5 (W m-2)
X = 1.0x10E-4 (W m-2)

(the W m-2 means Watts per square meter)

To determine the exact intensity of the flare you multiply the number in
the x-ray classification of that flare by the value of its class listed
above. For example, the X28 flare had an intensity of at least 28.0x10E-4
Watts per square meter.

This X28 flare is the most intense on record. We began accurate records
during the 1970's. So, there might have (and probably have been) more
intense flares in the past, but this one is the new record holder since the
1970's.

What all does that mean? Well, it was an event that caused complete
shortwave radio blackout on the sunlit side of the Earth, and degraded
somewhat the propagation of shortwave radio signals on the darkside of the
Earth. Thankfully, this one was not directed straight at the Earth, but
off away from the side of the visual sun.

The X28-class flare was quite amazing to view. I have some images from
SOHO at http://prop.hfradio.org/ if you'd like to see them.


73 de Tomas, NW7US (AAR0JA/AAM0EWA)
--
: Propagation Editor, CQ/CQ VHF/Popular Communications Magazines :
: http://hfradio.org/ -- http://prop.hfradio.org/ -- Brinnon, WA :
: 122.93W 47.67N - CW / SSB / DIGITAL / DX-Hunting / Propagation :
: A creator of solutions -- http://accessnow.com/ -- Perl Rules! :
: Washington State MARS Emergency Operations Officer - (AAM0EWA) :
: WA State Army MARS Webmaster for http://wa.mars.hfradio.org/ :
: 10x56526, FISTS 7055, FISTS NW 57, A.R. Lighthouse Society 144 :

tommyknocker wrote:

Stinger wrote:

Mike,

Here it is (the way I understand it).

I've scanned those e-mails (and some of the sites as well) and the gist of
the thing seems to be that they are using X-Ray emissions to measure how
significant these flares are (and whether or not they're going to fry
satellites). They assign an "X" with a digit as their shorthand to describe
the relative strength of the flare. The consensus is an "X-20" is a pretty
big one that can play havoc with power grids and long-range radio reception.

However, another problem they have is that the orbital equipment they're
using to measure these events can be overloaded by a truly big solar event.
The satellite was overloaded and was not able to measure the really big
flare last week, so they're having to rely on more subjective measures to
try to figure out its real strength. I've seen numbers as high as X-45 for
that one.

Going further, there are two schools of thought on these recent solar
events.

The first is that the sun has been about three years overdue to have a major
sunspot/flare cycle (they occur about every twelve years), and it is finally
happening, just a little later than expected.

The other (from the Art Bell crowd) is that the sun is being pelted by
larger and larger comets foreshadowing the incoming orbit of a previously
unknown planet (Planet X -- yeah, I know -- another "X") that drops into our
solar neighborhood every three thousand years.

I just know radio reception has been really spotty for the past three or so
weeks ;^)

-- Stinger

I saw an article on alt.conspiracy apparently written by Whitley
Strieber (the guy who wrote postapocalyptic novels before becoming an
alien contactee). The basic gist of it was that a burst of some sort of
energy from the core of the galaxy hit our sun, stopping the sun's
magnetic field from entirely flipping over like it should have. This is
allowing cosmic dust into our solar system, thus making the sun more
unstable. He said that the 11 year solar cycle has been disrupted which
will cause the end of civilization and etc. The article predicted that
solar flares would keep increasing in number and intensity. (But as
Tomas noted we've only been keeping records for 30 years, so there's a
lot we don't know.)

I suppose he (Strieber) got this information from his alien contacts. I
think we should assume that solar events like the recent flares have
occurred thousands of times during the sun's lifetime of at least
4-billion years. Since our lives are so short in comparison, we have a
tendency to see such things as being new in the history of the sun, when
in fact they are just new to us. To put it another way, given the huge
age discrepancy between the sun and human lives, what are the odds that
our sun has started a new phase in it's life just when we have developed
the capability to observe these events with our science? I'd say those
odds are slim to nil.


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