Powerful 7.5-magnitude earthquake hits off Vanuatu Islands, Port-Vila struck by small tsunami

By BNO News, Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 at 6:10 am

PORT-VILA, VANUATU (BNO NEWS) -- A powerful earthquake struck off Vanuatu Islands on Tuesday, seismologists said, generating a small tsunami that struck the Vanuatu capital of Port-Vila.

The 7.5-magnitude earthquake at 04:23 p.m. local time (0523 UTC) was centered about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west-northwest of Port-Vila. It struck about 35 kilometers (21.7 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said that a small tsunami was recorded at Port-Vila. According to the Hawaii-based center, sea level readings indicate a wave amplitude of 23 centimeters was observed.

According to the center, this was the first initial measurement of the first arriving tsunami wave, but added that no destructive widespread tsunami threat exists.

There were no immediate reports of damage or casualties from the earthquake or the tsunami.

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spaceweather.com

INCOMING CME:

The solar eruption of August 7th might affect Earth after all. Newly-arriving data from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) show a CME heading our way with a significant Earth-directed component.

The impact of this lopsided CME probably won't trigger a major geomagnetic storm---but the SOHO data show it could be bigger than expected. High latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when the cloud arrives probably on August 10th.

Sun storms may bring northern lights farther south

Yahoo/AP, Mon Aug 2, 7:10 pm ET

WASHINGTON – The sun may be about to put on a colorful light show.

AP – In this x-ray photo provided by
NASA, the sun is shown early in the
morning of Sunday, Aug. 1, 2010.

That's because of two minor solar storms that flared on Sunday and are shooting tons of plasma directly at Earth.

Scientists said residents of northern regions — from Maine to Michigan and anywhere farther north around the globe — may see unusual northern lights.

Usually only regions closer to the Arctic can see the aurora of rippling reds and greens, but solar storms pull them south.

The federal Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., said the plasma will likely arrive late Tuesday night or early Wednesday. The storms are not much of a threat to satellites or power grids.

Until recently, the sun was in a phase with few storms.

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Space Weather Turns into an International Problem

Sometimes a problem is so big, one country cannot handle it alone.

NASA, July 16, 2010

That's the message scientists are delivering at today's International Living with a Star (ILWS) meeting in Bremen, Germany, and representatives from more than 25 of the world's most technologically-advanced nations have gathered to hear what they have to say.

"The problem is solar storms—figuring out how to predict them and stay safe from their effects," says ILWS Chairperson Lika Guhathakurta of NASA headquarters. "We need to make progress on this before the next solar maximum arrives around 2013."

Click here to visit the International Living with a Star (ILWS) home page.

The sun and Earth are separated by 93 million miles of space—a seemingly safe distance. But since the Space Age began, and especially in recent years, there has been a growing realization that 93 million miles really isn't so far apart. Spacecraft and ground-based observatories have shown that Earth is located in the sun's outer atmosphere, buffeted by solar winds and pelted by hail storms of energetic particles. Moreover, the two bodies are actually connected by invisible threads of magnetism. During "reconnection events," which typically happen several times a day, you can trace invisible lines of force all the way from Earth's poles to the surface of the sun.

"The Earth and sun are interconnected. We cannot study them separately anymore," says Guhathakurta.

A few years ago, scientists coined the term "heliophysics" to describe the emerging science of the sun-Earth system. As a nod to the importance of the topic, NASA has set up a dedicated Heliophysics Division at HQ in Washington DC, and the United Nations declared 2007 the "International Heliophysical Year" (IHY) in hopes of spurring global involvement in this new field.

An artist's concept of Earth's magnetic
field connecting to the sun's. [more]

Predicting solar activity is a complicated problem, akin in some ways to terrestrial weather forecasting but multiplied in difficulty by the thorny physics of solar plasma and magnetism. Predicting the sun is only half the problem, though; the other half is Earth. How our planet's magnetic field and atmosphere respond to any given solar storm is a magnetohydrodynamical riddle that top scientists struggle to understand even with the aid of Earth's most powerful supercomputers. For these reasons, it is often said that space weather forecasting lags 50 years behind its terrestrial counterpart.

"We need more data--and more ideas," says Guhathakurta.

That's why, this week, she is handing over her chairmanship of ILWS to Dr. Ji Wu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In addition to leading the ILWS, Wu will spend the next two years harnessing the special talents of the world's most populous country for heliophysics.

"We have many scientists and lots of fresh ideas," says Wu. "China will be able to make important contributions in this area."

Another complication is volume. Heliophysics plays out on a stage which is hundreds of millions of miles wide. Simply keeping track of what's going on is a significant challenge. NASA and other space agencies have dozens of spacecraft out there, but they are spread over an enormous volume.

A 2008 report by the National Academy
of Sciences details the possible
consequences of solar storms. [more]

"Imagine trying to monitor Earth's oceans with a small number of buoys. You'd miss a lot. That's the situation we're in now with the 'ocean of space,'" says Guhathakurta.

China is about to contribute a space-buoy known as "KuaFu," named after a giant in Chinese mythology who wished to capture the sun. Kuafu will be located at the L1 Lagrange point where it will sample the solar wind upstream from Earth.

"We're putting KuaFu at a strategic point in space," says Wu. "The solar wind at L1 is an important input to many science models of the sun-Earth interaction."

When KuaFu launches it will join a growing international fleet of spacecraft dedicated to heliophysics. NASA, the European Space Agency, the Russian Federal Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, JAXA and China are all making significant contributions.

And just in time...

If forecasters are correct, the solar cycle will peak during the years around 2013. And while it probably won't be the biggest peak on record, human society has never been more vulnerable. The basics of daily life—from communications to weather forecasting to financial services—depend on satellites and high-tech electronics. A 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences warned that a century-class solar storm could cause billions in economic damage.

Preparing for a "solar Katrina," launching a new science, harnessing the talents of scientists around the globe: "These are just a few of our goals for this week's meeting," says Guhathakurta.

Ambitious? Yes, but in heliophysics thinking big comes with the territory.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Layers of Earth's upper atmosphere. (Credit: John Emmert/NRL. - Larger Image)

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As the Sun Awakens, NASA Keeps a Wary Eye on Space Weather

NASA Science

June 4, 2010: Earth and space are about to come into contact in a way that's new to human history. To make preparations, authorities in Washington DC are holding a meeting: The Space Weather Enterprise Forum at the National Press Club on June 8th.

Many technologies of the 21st century are vulnerable to solar storms. [more]

Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, explains what it's all about:

"The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."

The National Academy of Sciences framed the problem two years ago in a landmark report entitled "Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts." It noted how people of the 21st-century rely on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. Smart power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity. A century-class solar storm, the Academy warned, could cause twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrina.

Much of the damage can be mitigated if managers know a storm is coming. Putting satellites in 'safe mode' and disconnecting transformers can protect these assets from damaging electrical surges. Preventative action, however, requires accurate forecasting—a job that has been assigned to NOAA.

"Space weather forecasting is still in its infancy, but we're making rapid progress," says Thomas Bogdan, director of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

Bogdan sees the collaboration between NASA and NOAA as key. "NASA's fleet of heliophysics research spacecraft provides us with up-to-the-minute information about what's happening on the sun. They are an important complement to our own GOES and POES satellites, which focus more on the near-Earth environment."

Click 39 MB movie to play about space weather and NASA's heliophysics fleet. [more]

Among dozens of NASA spacecraft, he notes three of special significance: STEREO, SDO and ACE.

STEREO (Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory) is a pair of spacecraft stationed on opposite sides of the sun with a combined view of 90% of the stellar surface. In the past, active sunspots could hide out on the sun's farside, invisible from Earth, and then suddenly emerge over the limb spitting flares and CMEs. STEREO makes such surprise attacks impossible.

SDO (the Solar Dynamics Observatory) is the newest addition to NASA's fleet. Just launched in February, it is able to photograph solar active regions with unprecedented spectral, temporal and spatial resolution. Researchers can now study eruptions in exquisite detail, raising hopes that they will learn how flares work and how to predict them. SDO also monitors the sun's extreme UV output, which controls the response of Earth's atmosphere to solar variability.

On April 19, 2010, SDO observed one of the most massive eruptions in years. Earth was not in the line of fire ... this time. [full story]

Bogdan's favorite NASA satellite, however, is an old one: the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) launched in 1997. "Where would we be without it?" he wonders. ACE is a solar wind monitor. It sits upstream between the sun and Earth, detecting solar wind gusts, billion-ton CMEs, and radiation storms as much as 30 minutes before they hit our planet.

"ACE is our best early warning system," says Bogdan. "It allows us to notify utility and satellite operators when a storm is about to hit.”

NASA spacecraft were not originally intended for operational forecasting—"but it turns out that our data have practical economic and civil uses," notes Fisher. "This is a good example of space science supporting modern society."

2010 marks the 4th year in a row that policymakers, researchers, legislators and reporters have gathered in Washington DC to share ideas about space weather. This year, forum organizers plan to sharpen the focus on critical infrastructure protection. The ultimate goal is to improve the nation’s ability to prepare, mitigate, and respond to potentially devastating space weather events.

"I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather." Fisher concludes. "We take this very seriously indeed."

For more information about the meeting, please visit the Space Weather Enterprise Forum home page at http://www.nswp.gov/swef/swef_2010.html.

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

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One billion ton blast from the Sun headed to Earth

TheWeatherSpaceNews — 25 mei 2010 — One billion ton blast from the Sun headed to Earth

A magnetic filament on the sun erupted yesterday, May 24th, and the blast hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) in the general direction of Earth. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the action around the blast site.

Shortly after the eruption, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spotted a billion-ton CME darting away from the sun. NOAA forecasters say there is a 35% chance of geomagnetic activity on May 27th when the cloud delivers a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

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Fireball

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A Spurt of Quake Activity Raises Fears in Yellowstone

By PAT DAWSON / BILLINGS, Time/CNN,  Thursday, Jan. 01, 2009 

The Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park flows past other geysers, including Old Faithful, part of the Yellowstone Caldera (Jose Azel/Aurora/Getty) 

We who live along Montana's Yellowstone River are downstream from a simmering caldera, a geologic hot spot that has become especially active recently. Indeed, Yellowstone National Park contains the floor of a gigantic volcanic cauldron, one that rises and sinks with the forces that lie beneath — hence the picturesque geysers and steam holes. But a wave of recent earthquake activity is raising fears that have their origins 642,000 years ago, when a Yellowstone "supervolcano" exploded so violently that it created the caldera itself. Today, such an explosion — 1,000 times more powerful than the explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980 — would not only cover most of the U.S. with ash but also throw so much dust into the atmosphere that the world's climate could change. 

Could the current activity be the warning signs of another such apocalypse? Or just a large but not world-ending earthquake, like the 7.5-magnitude temblor that happened on a summer night in 1959 and caused a mountain to slide down into a campground, killing 28 people and damming the Madison River? 

Last week, geologists at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory (YVO) announced they had recorded a "notable swarm of earthquakes under way since Dec. 26 beneath Yellowstone Lake." The strongest tremor among the hundreds in the past week measured 3.9 on Dec. 27; most of the readings above 2.8 were felt by park employees and visitors around the lake area. The activity relaxed in magnitude early this week but then flexed upward again to top 3.0 by early New Year's Eve. "This December 2008 earthquake sequence is the most intense in this area for some years," YVO reported, "and is centered on the east side of the Yellowstone Caldera," the ancient collapsed volcano beneath Yellowstone Lake. The scientists said they cannot immediately "identify any causative fault or other feature without further analysis." (See a gallery of recent volcanic eruptions.) 

This activity could have a whole range of consequences. In a study released last year, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) said possible hazards could include hydrothermal explosions, when steam breaks through the surface and forms a crater. That has happened 26 times in the park's 127 years of record-keeping. The USGS discounted chances for cataclysmic eruption of the caldera, noting that the hot, active magma chamber below Yellowstone has turned into "largely crystallized mush." But the same study also said: "Depending on the nature and magnitude of a particular hazardous event and the particular time and season when it might occur, 70,000 to more than 100,000 persons could be affected; the most violent events could affect a broader region or even continent-wide areas." 

Jake Lowenstern, Ph.D., YVO's chief scientist, who also is part of the USGS Volcano Hazards Team, told TIME that a supervolcano event does not appear to be imminent. "We don't think the amount of magma exists that would create one of these large eruptions of the past," he said. "It is still possible to have a volcanic eruption comparable to other volcanoes. But we would expect to see more and larger quakes, deformation and precursory explosions out of the lake. We don't believe that anything strange is happening right now." Last summer YVO installed new instrumentation in boreholes 500 to 600 ft. deep to better detect ground deformation. Says Lowenstern: "We have a lot more ability to look at all the data now." (See an interactive graphic depicting how scientists monitor volcanoes.) 

The Yellowstone Caldera — formed by the massive upheaval 642,000 years ago that spread airborne debris all the way to the Gulf of Mexico — is nowhere close to being extinct. Areas of the park's topography inflate like a bellows because of magma infusing into volcanic chambers about 6 miles below the surface. About 1,000 to 2,000 tremors a year (mostly small) have been recorded since 2004, when interpretation of satellite imagery with GPS readings indicated the caldera had been rising as much as 3 in. a year. The past week's number of tremors — about 400 — is considered unusual. 

The 1991 explosion of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines was the largest eruption in recent memory, and its effects on the atmosphere are still being measured. The 1883 eruption of Indonesia's Krakatoa led to a global cooling and the deadly winter of 1886-87 that wiped out the short-lived open-range cattle bonanza of Montana Territory. In 2000, Ken Wohletz, a scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, postulated that an even bigger Krakatoa eruption in 6th century A.D. may have sent a tall plume of vaporized seawater into the atmosphere, causing the formation of stratospheric ice clouds with superfine hydrovolcanic ash, which literally cast a pall over much of the world at the beginning of what became known as the Dark Ages. 

YVO's alert code for the Yellowstone Caldera stands at green, but if it ever elevates to yellow or red based on seismic readings, Lowenstern says, "Ultimately it's my responsibility to put out alerts. The National Park Service and local officials would be responsible for civil defense measures and evacuation plans. For now, life goes on. The system is generally automated, and a seismologist at the University of Utah is on call to make sure it's a real event should it be anything unusual." 

This time of year, Yellowstone is a land of dramatic fire-and-ice contrasts, with hissing, boiling water heated in chambers far below shooting out clouds of steam over a subzero, snowy alpine landscape, where bison and elk find warm patches of open ground to browse. We who live here, it has been said, do so at the mercy of geology. In much of the West, with its long seismic faults and Yellowstone-centered hot spots, it is for humans a sublimely tenuous coexistence with the earth's fickle tectonic temperaments.

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Magnetic-Shield Cracks Found; Big Solar Storms Expected

Victoria Jaggard in San Francisco, National Geographic News, December 17, 2008 

Solar winds (depicted in red) are infiltrating Earth's protective magnetosphere (blue), experts said in December 2008, which could lead to a perilous period of solar storms starting in 2012.  

Solar storms—when explosions from the sun send blasts of charged particles toward Earth—can cause satellites to malfunction, threaten spacewalkers, and wipe out power grids. (Image by Steele Hill/NASA)

An unexpected, thick layer of solar particles inside Earth's magnetic field suggests there are huge breaches in our planet's solar defenses, scientists said. 

These breaches indicate that during the next period of high solar activity, due to start in 2012, Earth will experience some of the worst solar storms seen in decades. 

Solar winds—charged particles from the sun—help create auroras, the brightly colored lights that sometimes appear above the Earth's poles. 

But the winds also trigger storms that can interfere with satellites' power sources, endanger spacewalkers, and even knock out power grids on Earth. 

"The sequence we're expecting … is just right to put particles in and energize them to create the biggest geomagnetic storms, the brightest auroras, the biggest disturbances in Earth's radiation belts," said David Sibeck, a space-weather expert at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. 

"So if all of this is true, it should be that we're in for a tough time in the next 11 years." 

(Related: "Sun's Power Hits New Low, May Endanger Earth?" [September 24, 2008].) 

Into the Breach 

Data from NASA's THEMIS satellite showed that a 4,000-mile-thick (6,437-kilometer-thick) layer of solar particles has gathered and is rapidly growing within the outermost part of the magnetosphere, a protective bubble created by Earth's magnetic field. 

Normally the magnetosphere blocks most of the solar wind, flowing outward from the sun at about a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) an hour. 

"The solar wind is constantly changing, and the Earth's magnetic field is buffeted like a wind sock in gale-force winds, fluttering back and forth in response to the solar wind," Sibeck said this week during a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. 

Near Earth's Equator, where solar winds press against the magnetosphere, the field lines point north. 

Solar winds also carry magnetic field lines toward Earth, and those solar field lines point in different directions during the sun's 11-year cycle of activity. 

Earth's magnetic field lines align themselves in different directions over various regions of the planet. 

Conventional thinking had suggested that north-pointing field lines would act like reinforcements to Earth's northward field, causing the planet to "raise shields" against solar winds. 

The idea is based, in part, on the fact that auroras are brighter and space-weather hazards increase when solar winds carry southward-pointing field lines, Sibeck said. 

"So it's reasonable to think that during periods when the sun's magnetic field lines point south, that's when the most particles get into Earth's magnetosphere." 

THEMIS, however, showed that the opposite is true. 

The satellite system "found the solar particle layer is much thicker when the two fields are pointing in the same direction," said Marit Øieroset, a THEMIS scientist based at the University of California, Berkeley, who first saw the effect. 

In fact, 20 times more particles get through Earth's magnetic shield when the field lines are aligned than when they are opposed, she said. 

Model Behavior 

To find the mechanism behind this discovery, Oieroset and Sibeck turned to computer models that could simulate the conditions observed by THEMIS. 

The models showed that the likely driver is north-facing field lines connecting with Earth's magnetosphere, said Jimmy Raeder, a physicist at the University of New Hampshire in Durham who helped build the simulations. 

As a field line approaches, it latches onto the poles and wraps around the planet like an octopus using a tentacle to snare its prey, he said. 

The latching, known as magnetic reconnection, tears huge cracks in the magnetosphere and allows solar plasma to leak in. 

"We have other observations from other satellites that this reconnection process happens over the poles at times, but we had never appreciated what it actually does," Raeder said. 

A thicker layer of solar particles, however, isn't enough by itself to create geomagnetic troubles for Earth. 

Right now the planet is enjoying a period of low activity called solar minimum. But particles have been building up inside the magnetosphere as the solar wind carries northward-facing field lines to Earth. 

During the next solar cycle, the winds are expected to carry southward-facing field lines, which connect with the magnetosphere in such a way that they provide extra charge to any plasma inside the shield. 

"You can sort of compare [the situation] to a gas stove," Raeder said. 

"If you turn on the gas and you light it right away, nothing will happen—the gas stove will go on and there will be a flame. 

"But if you turn on a gas stove and you don't do anything for a while and then you throw in a match, what will happen? It will say, Boom!" 

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Satellite is weeks away from hitting Earth

CNN

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A large U.S. spy satellite has lost power and propulsion and could hit the Earth in late February or March, government officials said Saturday.

A senior government official says lawmakers and other nations are being kept apprised of the situation.

The satellite, which no longer can be controlled, could contain hazardous materials, and it is unknown where on the planet it might come down, they said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the information is classified as secret.

"Appropriate government agencies are monitoring the situation," said Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council.

"Numerous satellites over the years have come out of orbit and fallen harmlessly. We are looking at potential options to mitigate any possible damage this satellite may cause."

He would not comment on whether it is possible for the satellite to be perhaps shot down by a missile. He said it would be inappropriate to discuss any specifics at this time.

The largest uncontrolled re-entry by a NASA spacecraft was Skylab, the 78-ton abandoned space station that fell from orbit in 1979. Its debris dropped harmlessly into the Indian Ocean and across a remote section of western Australia.

In 2000, NASA engineers successfully directed a safe de-orbit of the 17-ton Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, using rockets aboard the satellite to bring it down in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.

In 2002, officials believe debris from a 7,000-pound science satellite smacked into the Earth's atmosphere and rained down over the Persian Gulf, a few thousand miles from where they first predicted it would plummet.

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