A massive solar storm in July 2012 was more intense than thought—and it blasted right through the Earth’s orbit. Luckily for us, we were on the other side of the sun, thus missing the chaos completely. But if that storm had hit this beautiful little blue marble in space? "The solar bursts would have enveloped Earth in magnetic fireworks matching the largest magnetic storm ever reported on Earth, the so-called Carrington event of 1859," Science Daily reports.
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Millions of charged particles are rushing toward earth after a gigantic solar flare on Tuesday. Bad news for NASA’s latest mission, but good news for sky-watchers: Those charged particles also collide with the earth’s atmosphere to produce the ethereal-looking northern lights.
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Worried about an important satellite transmission? The UK’s Meteorological Office will begin offering daily space weather forecasts to warn against solar storms that can knock out power grids, radios, and satellite-based tech like GPS. Solar storm activity follows a 11-year cycle, and we’re approaching a maximum right now. [BBC]
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Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.
This week we swing by some superhero news, look at how solar panels might shape up in the future, explore a Lego forest and see how to grab dark matter just using some household gold and strands of DNA. Not only that, we discover how the sun likes to celebrate the fourth of July with its own firework display. This is alt / week
Continue reading Alt-week 7.8.2012: Solar flares, trapping dark matter, and life-sized Lego trees
Alt-week 7.8.2012: Solar flares, trapping dark matter, and life-sized Lego trees originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 08 Jul 2012 16:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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