March 30, 2001. Copyright 2001. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

Monster sunspot could become solar tempest

LONDON, March 30, Graphic News: Astronomers are currently observing the largest sunspot seen on the surface of our star for a decade.

Having reached the peak of an 11-year cycle, the sun is experiencing an epidemic of sunspots, violent storms and explosive flares, creating some of the most spectacular auroras in years. 

Astronomers identified almost 300 of the peculiar storms on the surface of the sun in late March, including a particularly active region designated 9393. 

Scientists think it could lead to a powerful flare some time in the next few days. If this explosive event does occur, it will liberate in just a few seconds more energy than mankind has ever used. 

The 9393 sunspot group was not nearly so large when it was first seen a month ago. The SunÕs rotation took it from view but when it reappeared a few days ago astronomers were amazed that it had grown so big -- it is now more than 14 times the size of the Earth.

Sunspots can herald powerful solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which spew billions of tons of ionized gas and particles into the solar system.

The most intense solar flares are called Òwhite lightÓ flares and it is this type of event that 9393 is expected to produce. 

Such blasts can distort the EarthÕs magnetic field, producing in extreme latitudes colorful nocturnal sky displays known as auroras, or the Northern and Southern Lights. People in Alaska and Finland have witnessed some of the best auroras in years, after a CME struck the magnetosphere last week, according to NASA.

Power companies in northern Europe, the U.S. and Canada are bracing for the possibility that a CME could knock out generating and transmission systems. In the worst recent geomagnetic storm caused by Òspace weather,Ó a solar tempest plunged the Canadian province of Quebec into a blackout in March 1989, leaving six million people without electricity for nine hours and nearly toppling the power grid in the U.S. Northeast.

In January 1994, a multimillion-volt solar storm knocked out CanadaÕs main television broadcast satellite, Anik-E2 and a similar storm in 1997 is believed to have caused the failure of a $200 million Galaxy-4 communications satellite.

CMEÕs sometimes take bizarre twists and turns before reaching the Earth. Fast solar eruptions can overtake and consume their slower predecessors, scientists announced this week. They discovered the so-called Òcannibal coronal mass ejectionsÓ by studying radio and visual measurements from two different NASA satellites.  

ÒCoronal mass ejection cannibalism is the most violent form of interaction between CMEs,Ó said Natchimuthuk Gopalswamy of NASAÕs Goddard Space Flight Center.

The collisions can change the speed of the eruptions and may prolong the duration of magnetic storms over Earth.
/ENDS
Sources: NASA, Reuters, Associated Press