Solar Flare Creates Puzzling Particle Pulse on Earth SPACE.com Staff Date: 31 May 2012 Time: 10:22 AM ET

A moderate solar flare on May 17 lit up ground stations all over the world with an unexpected and puzzling pulse of high-energy particles. It should not have happened, and scientists are now trying to figure out why it did.

Major solar flares, flashes of light at various wavelengths often associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are known to disrupt communications and can even trip power grids on Earth. But the May 17 flare was an M-class event, moderate and relatively common and not expected to create disturbances on the surface of Earth. Yet either the flare or the CME generated a ground-level enhancement (GLE), a blast of high-energy particles that lit up ground stations called neutron monitors on Earth for the first time in nearly six years.

Last month's solar flare created a mysterious pulse on Earth that seemed to 'answer' sun's blast

• Neutron monitors around world 'lit up' despite relatively small size of flare
• First time in six years flare affected Earth like this
• Data being analysed by satellite which scans particles invisible to others

By Rob Waugh

PUBLISHED: 06:36 EST, 1 June 2012 | UPDATED: 06:38 EST, 1 June 2012


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2153200/Last-months-solar-flare-created-mysterious-pulse-Earth-answer-suns-blast.html#ixzz1x1TkOj3d






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.

May 17th's solar flare: 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

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

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.

  More...

• Want to sit out the Apocalypse in style? Bad luck - all the $1 million luxury apartments in Kansas's 'Doomsday-proof' block have sold

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?


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.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2153200/Last-months-solar-flare-created-mysterious-pulse-Earth-answer-suns-blast.html#ixzz1x1UX5GKc