

Coronal mass ejection from monster sunspot AR 1476 due May 14 - quadrahelix
http://earthsky.org/space/huge-sunspot-ar1476-turned-our-way-might-produce-x-flare

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Luyt
That site not only does science education, but its founder Deborah Byrd also
replies to comments from her website visitors, with a skeptical view. The
commenters generally see the End Of The World in solar flares:

Comment: "I believe that a flare big enough [...] would affect the Earth’s
magnetic field. [...] the magnetic field is weakening [...] flare lets get
some volcanoes and earth quakes [...] infastructure collapse?"

Reply: "We see too much about possible disasters that are, essentially, out of
the control of people like you and me. There’s way too much fear-mongering
going on in the world."

Comment: "It does not concern me so much what a powerful X-Class flare may do
to our technology, but more importantly what it may do to our bodies on a
cellular level."

Reply: "We humans evolved under the influence of solar flares, including
x-flares. They have been happening for all of human history. We’ll be fine."

Comment: "...wouldn’t that mean that massive solar flares will damage the
ozone layer?"

Reply: "The concern most people talk about is _not_ to Earth itself – or our
human bodies – but to our technology."

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iscrewyou
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare#Classification>

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stuff4ben
Until today I had no idea you could take a photograph of the Sun and actually
see sunspots from Earth. I suppose I should have realized that since the size
of that massive sunspot is as big as 6 Earths, it should be visible with some
good equipment.

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wtvanhest
Am I doing the math right?

150,000,000 km (distance from sun to earth)

1,000 km/sec (speed this thing is traveling)

2,500 minutes (time it takes to get here)

41.67 hours

1.74 days

This is a lot faster than the post said it would take.

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lloeki
> 1,000 km/sec (speed this thing is traveling)

it's the speed at which it got _ejected_. Supposition: since it's a coronal
_mass_ ejection, _material_ is ejected. Sun produces a gravitational pull on
said mass, therefore it will decelerate.

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abtinf
I'm pretty sure this is part of a PR stunt on the part of Blizzard, which is
releasing Diablo 3 tomorrow.

The fires of hell on raining on Earth.

