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'Canyon of fire' solar storm will slam into Earth today or tomorrow
- 1970-01-01 4y agoNOAA said it's normal conditions https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/noaa-scales-explanation OK an hour later and we've been updated to G1 (Minor) Geomagnetic Storm Impacts
- omnicognate 4y agoHeadline writers thoroughly earning their place on Golgafrincham Ark Ship B.
- tamaharbor 4y agoWhy don’t they know whether it will happen today or tomorrow?
- ksaj 4y agoIt's coming straight at us, so we don't have much to judge its speed from. If we saw it on an angle, we know the distance, so we could calculate the precise moment of intersection. Since it is essentially a cloud, we can't just go by parallax (how much it appears to grow in size as it nears), because it is also expanding as it approaches. We do know enough to model how the cloud disperses as it flings through space, and the models suggest that two day window for intersecting with Earth. Also, the cloud of sun-stuff is so much larger than Earth, which is pretty much the only reason we can measure anything of it at all. Otherwise the sun would just block it from view entirely. Watch the animations, and you'll see how the ejection is easy to see, but it rapidly becomes harder, and then impossible to see, when looking at the sun straight on. After that point, we can only measure what parts of it we can see that take up more of our field of "vision" (visible light and otherwise) around the sun, but not at our sun.