Solar Flares

The second major solar flare of the year occurred early Wednesday, disrupting some radio communications on Earth, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported.

Solar flares and adverse weather at receiving stations in Spain and in the Mojave Desert punched "holes" in crucial data that the Pioneer spacecraft gathered on the closest approach of Halley's comet, space agency scientists said Wednesday. However, National Aeronautics and Space Administration researchers said they are continuing to unravel the mysteries of the comet as it speeds by at 100,000 m.p.h.

A solar flare that burst out of the sun Tuesday was the largest on record. The two previous most powerful flares, from 1989 and 2001, were rated at X-20 on the scale used by solar astronomers. Tuesday's event was at least an X-28 and could be revised upward. The flare was so powerful it "blinded" the satellite used to measure it for 11 minutes. The flare caused few problems on Earth because it was directed away from the planet and hit only with a glancing blow.

One of the most powerful solar flares in nearly 30 years erupted from the sun's surface early Tuesday morning, ejecting a titanic blast of gas, radiation and matter toward Earth. Space weather forecasters said the event could lead to a geomagnetic storm today and Thursday that could disrupt power lines and impair satellite and radio communications, although the power of the storm remained uncertain.

The strongest solar flare in five years erupted on the face of the sun Monday, disrupting communications on Earth. It was expected to set off a brilliant show of northern lights early Wednesday. The flare affected Coast Guard navigation systems and shortwave radio signals and was expected to affect surface and satellite communications through Wednesday, said Joe Kunches of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Environment Services Center. The flare, detected at 6:05 a.m.

A powerful solar flare Tuesday evening caused the surface of the sun to shudder. A second smaller flare followed about an hour later, and the blasts caused by those flares have hurled a “big blob of magnetized material” toward Earth. So says Alex Young, solar physicist at NASA Goddard, who spoke with The Times on Wednesday about the flares and their predicted impact . The results of the coming geomagnetic storm may be pleasant -- auroras as far south as Illinois -- or unpleasant, such as GPS and communications problems, according to Young.

Thanks to a powerful solar flare , the northern lights are on tour -- sort of. Locals and lucky travelers in Northern Ireland this week have seen the dazzling ribbons of color usually reserved for higher latitudes. The reason? Particles from the solar flare that have started to rain down on Earth also have made the lights, a.k.a. the aurora borealis, visible to more people. (The magnetic showers expected to last to midday Friday also have the potential to down power grids and interrupt communications, according to this National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration update .)

Radiation from the largest solar flare in four years is expected to reach the Earth Thursday and Friday, potentially interfering with communication and navigation satellites and disrupting ground-based communication networks and power grids. The rain of charged particles from the so-called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, should also enhance the northern lights, also known as the Aurora Borealis, making them both more prominent and visible farther south, perhaps even into the northern tier of the United States, experts said.

A heavy-duty solar flare erupted on the surface of the sun midmorning Thursday, and it appeared from early data that a solar storm from the X-class eruption was headed toward Earth. "It looks to be headed in the Earth's direction," Alex Young of Maryland's Goddard Space Flight Center told the Los Angeles Times in an interview Thursday. But, he noted, that's based on a view from just one of two spacecraft monitoring the sun.  The so-called coronal mass ejection -- a violently released bubble of gas and magnetic fields -- could veer off. Scientists are waiting on more data from spacecraft within the next few hours to pinpoint the speed and severity of the storm.  PHOTOS: Solar flare close-ups Mike Hapgood, a space weather scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, England, explained coronal mass ejections in a recent interview with The Times: "Coronal mass ejections are caused when the magnetic field in the sun's atmosphere gets disrupted and then the plasma, the sun's hot ionized gas, erupts and send charged particles into space.

One sterling quality of American businesses is that they'll try to make money from anything. Paranoia, for instance. So say hello to Ron Hubbard, the owner of Montebello-based Atlas Survival Shelters, which converts huge corrugated metal tubes up to 50 feet long into fully equipped, all-the-comforts-of-home underground shelters at a price of up to about $78,000 each, not including shipping and interment. You may have spotted the Atlas shop from the 5 Freeway as you're heading into downtown.