MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

“Asia’s third-largest economy — INDIA — was hit by three more huge power grid failures, one day after a similar, but smaller power failure covered half the country — leaving more than 650 million people without electricity in the world’s biggest blackout according to the ATCA Research & Analysis Wing. More than half the population of India has been affected, which is roughly 10% of the world’s population and bigger than the entire population of the European Union or the United States, Russia and Brazil combined. In parallel, hours of power outage in the scorching summer sparked protest in most parts of Pakistan and angry protesters attacked offices of power supply departments in some areas.

Is a ‘Solar Flare’ partially responsible for India and Pakistan’s massive power outage? Could it have been a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) since most of Pakistan, along with northern India, also suffered long blackouts? Given that rains had arrived, temperature was down in north India so there was less requirement for a power overdraw. For example, the temperature in New Delhi on 31st July was 25.4 degrees Celsius, more than ten degrees below what it had been during the peak of the summer heat. If electricity overuse was the sole cause of the power failure, because of too many people drawing power, this would have happened before now.

A medium-size solar flare erupted from the sun this weekend, hurling a cloud of plasma and charged particles towards Earth on a cosmic path that was expected to deliver a glancing blow to our planet on July 31st, according to space weather forecasters, the day the massive power outage took place across India and Pakistan. The M6-class solar flare exploded from the sun on Saturday — July 28th — unleashing a wave of plasma and charged particles, called a coronal mass ejection (CME), into space. ‘This is a slow-moving CME,’ astronomer Tony Phillips wrote on Spaceweather.com, which regularly monitors space weather events. ‘The cloud’s low speed (382 km/s estimated) combined with its glancing trajectory suggests a weak impact is in the offing. Nevertheless, polar geomagnetic storms are possible when the cloud arrives.’…

We all know that blackouts happen in India and Pakistan somewhat regularly, but not on this massive scale.” Read more.

By David Mawby -“An exceptional bright light phenomenon was observed in many parts of Ostobothnia, western Finland, just after 5pm on Tuesday. According to the Ursa astronomical association, this was a meteorite which had passed through the Earth’s upper atmosphere before hitting the ground.

According to Esko Lyytinen of Ursa, the object definitely made it to the ground. He speculated it could be as heavy as dozens of kilograms. The object’s final explosion occurred probably between the towns of Kalajoki and Ylivieska.

Several observations of the object were made by Ursa at locations across Ostrobothnia. The subsonic blast was heard over a wide area.

Amateur astronomers are now eager to find the heavenly body which lies somewhere in the area of Ylivieska and Kalajoki.

Meteorites are a rare occurrence whereas meteors, objects that fail to reach the Earth’s surface, are more common. For example, during the course of the year, the Earth passes through dust clouds which give rise to a phenomenon known as a “meteor shower.” During such an event, streaks of light caused by small rocky particles are visible at regular intervals in the night sky.” Source – yle.

“Big sunspot AR1520 unleashed an X1.4-class solar flare on July 12th at 1653 UT. Because this sunspot is directly facing Earth, everything about the blast was geoeffective. For one thing, it hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) directly toward our planet. According to a forecast track prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab, the CME will hit Earth on July 14th around 10:20 UT (+/- 7 hours) and could spark strong geomagnetic storms. Sky watchers should be alert for auroras this weekend…

The UV pulse partially ionized Earth’s upper atmosphere, disturbing the normal propagation of radio signals around the planet. Monitoring stations in Norway and Ireland recorded the sudden ionospheric disturbance.

Finally, solar protons accelerated by the blast are swarming around Earth. The radiation storm, in progress, ranks ‘S1’ on NOAA space weather scales, which means it poses no serious threat to satellites or astronauts. This could change if the storm continues to intensify.” Source – Spaceweather.com.

By Tariq Malik – “The most powerful solar flare of the summer so far erupted from the sun Friday (July 6), the latest in a string of powerful storms this week from our nearest star, space weather experts say.

The sun storm occurred just after 7 p.m. EDT (2300 GMT) and registered as a class X1.1 solar flare — one of the strongest types of solar flares possible, according to the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) run by NOAA and the National Weather Service.

The huge solar flare erupted from the giant sunspot AR1515, which has already fired off several other powerful storms this week. Space weather scientists were closely watching the sunspot for possible X-class flares.

‘And AR1515 did it! X1-class solar flare,’ officials with NASA’s sun-watching Solar Dynamics Observatory wrote in a post to @Camilla_SDO, the mission’s mascot Twitter account.

By all accounts, the sunspot group AR1515 is enormous. It stretches across 118,681 miles (191,000 kilometers) of the sun’s surface, making it longer than 15 Earths set end to end, NASA solar astrophysicist C. Alex Young told SPACE.com today before the new flare.

While today’s solar flare marked the strongest of the summer season, which began in late June, it is not the strongest of 2012. In March, the sun fired off an intense X5.4-class solar flare. Today’s sun storm marked the fifth X-class solar flare of the year…

Earlier today, space weather officials warned of more potential flare-ups from sunspot AR1515. The sun has been undergoing substantial activity this entire week from several sunspots on its Earth-facing side.” Read more.

By Rob Waugh – “A violent new sunspot is bombarding the Earth with particles from solar flares – including a blast that affected some radio transmissions across Europe.

Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an M5.6-class solar flare erupting from the sun’s surface starting on July 2, from a huge sunspot called AR1515 in the sun’s southern hemisphere.

The blast of particles – a ‘coronal mass ejection’ – was not directed towards Earth, but the charged particles caused brief radio interference across Europe.

From a different spot, but on that same day, the sun unleashed a coronal mass ejection (CME) that began at 4:36 AM on Tuesday.

Models from the NASA’s Space Weather Center at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md, described the CME at traveling at nearly 700 miles per second, but do not show it heading toward Earth.

Sunspots are darker than the surrounding area because they are slightly cooler, which makes them less luminous.

They are caused by the sun’s magnetic field becoming twisted – and it’s this twisting dynamic that can produce coronal mass ejections.” Read more.

By ROB WAUGH – “A burning trail lit up the sky over Western Australia for 20 minutes after an object suspected to be a meteorite plunged into the sea, leaving a burning orange trail that mesmerised local residents.

Beachgoers in Perth debated what could have caused the strange burning line in the sky, which persisted for 20 minutes. Most meteorite trails are only seen briefly – and seeing an object plunge into the sea is rare.

Local resident Gavin Trought captured a picture of the ‘burning streak’, saying, ‘The weird streak in the sky seen from Cottesloe last night. I noticed it just before sunset.’

Meteorites are fragments of rock that land on Earth’s surface. Those that burn up – ‘ablate’ – in Earth’s atmosphere are referred to as meteors.

The meteorite was reported by Perth Now.

Seeing such clear, fiery trails is rare.

Perth journalist Pip Moir posted a photo she took at Cottesloe Beach to Twitter shortly after 6pm as puzzled onlookers debated what caused the colourful phenomena.

Daniel Jongue, manager at Perth’s The Naked Fig Cafe, said he saw ‘something on the horizon’ just before sunset.

Jonque said that the fiery trail lasted for around 20 minutes.” Read more.

By Ian O’Neill, Discovery News – “For the second day in a row, an active region on the sun has erupted with a coronal mass ejection (CME), blasting a beautifully dynamic magnetic bubble of energetic plasma in the direction of Earth. It is powering through interplanetary space at a breakneck speed of 1,360 kilometers per second (that’s over 3 million miles per hour!)

A NASA spacecraft — one of two solar satellites called the Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) that are orbiting the sun in opposite directions — watched the CME expand and get launched into interplanetary space from a perfect vantage point.

On June 13, AR1504 erupted, producing a M1 class flare that was accompanied by a CME. According to Spaceweather.com, that CME will hit Venus on June 15th, Earth on June 16th and Mars on June 19th. Today’s CME, launched from the same location, is predicted to also slam into the Earth’s magnetic field on June 16, potentially generating a geomagnetic storm.

If the conditions are just right, a CME’s magnetic field can compress and distort the magnetic field of our planet, called the magnetosphere. If the rotation of the CME’s magnetic field is aligned just right, it may become ‘geoeffective,’ causing the CME’s field to connect with the Earth’s magnetic field.

Should this occur, a geomagnetic storm may result, causing the injection of energetic solar particles into the magnetosphere and a rapid release of stored energy. The result is often spectacular displays of aurorae at high latitudes and potentially some interference to modern technology. Communication interference may occur and, during extreme geomagnetic storms, airliners may be directed away from polar regions and electrical surges in national power grids may be detected.” Read more.

By Nancy Atkinson, Universe Today – “An unusually large and bright near-Earth asteroid was recently discovered and it will make its closest approach to Earth on June 14 at about 23:10 UTC. The object is so bright, the Slooh Observatory will attempt to have a live webcast showing the object sneaking past Earth at about 5.3 billion km (3.35 million) miles away, or about 14 times the distance between Earth and the Moon. The asteroid, 2012 LZ1 was discovered by Rob McNaught and colleagues on 2012 June 10/11, and is about 502 meters (1,650 feet) wide.

The team of Nick Howes, Ernesto Guido and Giovanni Sostero from the Remanzacco Observatory took this image of 2012 LZ1 on June 13. They also have an animation of the object here.

There’s no danger this asteroid will impact Earth, but it has been classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid. PHAs are asteroids larger than approximately 100 meters that can come closer to our planet than 0.05 AU (7.4 million km, 4.65 million miles). None of the known PHAs is on a collision course with our planet, although, as the Remanzacco team pointed out, astronomers are finding new ones all the time.” Read more.

Click for larger view

By Mike Wall, SPACE.com – “The historic transit of Venus across the sun Tuesday is a must-see for skywatchers, but observers shouldn’t overlook another celestial event that comes just one day earlier — a partial lunar eclipse of the June full moon.

On Tuesday (June 5), Venus will trek across the sun’s face from Earth’s perspective, marking the last such transit of Venus until 2117. In a sort of celestial warmup, the full moon will dive through the Earth’s shadow on Monday morning to produce a partial lunar eclipse that will be visible to observers throughout parts of North America, Asia and the Pacific region, weather permitting.

The lunar eclipse comes two weeks after the May 20 annular solar eclipse that enthralled skywatchers around the world, and that’s no accident.

Solar eclipses are always accompanied by lunar eclipses, either two weeks before or two weeks after. The moon travels halfway in its orbit around the Earth in that time, forming another straight line with our planet and the sun. (In solar eclipses, the moon blots out the sun, while lunar eclipses occur when Earth’s shadow covers all or part of the moon.)

The same parts of the world that were treated to the May 20 ‘ring of fire’ solar eclipse will thus be favorably placed for Monday’s partial lunar eclipse. Much of central and western North America should get a good show, as should eastern Asia, Australia and the Pacific region. The full moon of June is konwn as the Strawberry Moon since it occurs during the short strawberry-harvesting season this month. [Partial Lunar Eclipse of June 4, 2012: Observer’s Guide (Images)]

The eclipse begins in earnest at 6 a.m. EDT (1000 GMT), when the moon first contacts the umbra, the dark inner portion of Earth’s shadow. The umbra might appear dark and relatively colorless to the naked eye, but binoculars or a telescope may show it glowing dimly orange, red or brown.

The eclipse peaks at 7:04 a.m. EDT (1104 GMT), when 37 percent of the moon will be in shadow, and ends an hour later, at 8:06 a.m. EDT (1206 GMT).” Read more.

By Rob Waugh – “After an unusually long quiet period, the sun unleashed a solar flare on May 17 this year – but scientists are now puzzling over what happened on Earth.

Neutron monitors all round the world lit up in response to the blast for the first time in six years, despite the fact it was an M-Class, or moderate, flare.

The ‘answering’ pulse shouldn’t have happened at all. Now scientists are trying to unravel what happened – and why our planet ‘pulsed’ in response.

James Ryan, an astrophysicist at the UNH Space Science Center said, ‘This solar flare was most unimpressive and the associated CME was only slightly more energetic. And looking at it optically, it was remarkably dim, it was, all things considered, a ninety-eight pound weakling of solar events.’

Scientists are now analysing the data using a satellite which scans an range of bizarre particles invisible to other spacecraft – PAMELA, a European spacecraft dedicated to watching rays from space.

Launched in 2006 and dedicated to studying cosmic rays, just two weeks before the most recent blast from the Sun PAMELA was retasked to focus on solar physics due to the Sun’s ever-increasing activity.

For decades, there has been strong debate as to what complex processes produce the extremely energetic particles that are registered on the ground; is it the shockwave in front of a CME or do the particles come from the solar flare itself?

The most recent event will allow the study of the evolution of the flare from low to high energies without interruption.

‘The PAMELA satellite provides us with a bridge that has never existed before,’ says Ryan, ‘a bridge between solar energetic particles measured by other spacecraft and those made on the ground by neutron monitors, like the one we’ve operated here in Durham for decades. Spanning that gap has opened up new opportunities.’” Source – Mail Online.

IANS – “A team of scientists from Mumbai will leave for Nagpur on Monday to investigate and study the impact of last Tuesday’s large meteorite shower in the Katol region which damaged several houses, an official said here on Sunday.

Tentatively named ‘Vinoba Meteorite Shower 2012’, the team will probe whether any crater has been formed in the region, covering a distance of around 200 sq km, said Bharat Adur, head of Akash Ganga Centre for Astronomy (AGCA), Thane.

‘The phenomenon of balls of fire shooting from the sky accompanied by huge blast-like sounds was witnessed by many last Tuesday evening around 5 p.m. The shower was travelling in the eastern direction and is the first such meteorite shower recorded in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra,’ Adur told IANS.

A Geological Survey of India (GSI) team, which has already collected some samples, will also be surveying the entire area over the next couple of days, he added.

Adur said that the meteor shower was accompanied by earth tremors measuring 2.1 on the Richter Scale, but it is not clear whether the cumulative effect of the meteorites falling created the quake or it was a coincidence (that the meteorite shower and earthquake occurred simultaneously).

Adur said the GSI’s Deputy Director-General (Central Region) Binok Kumar and three other scientists have collected small samples of the meteorites for scientific studies and now, the Mumbai team will travel there for its own independent studies.

‘They have confirmed that the pieces are indeed meteorites and this will add to the challenges before us after their physical, chemical analysis and age would be determined using radioisotope methods,’ Adur said.

Director of the Petrology Department, G Suresh has opined from a preliminary check that the black colour pieces recovered belong to a ‘stony meteorite’ and are rich in silicate minerate with minute quantities of iron and nickel.” Read more.