Strong Solar Flare Activity May Cause Rare Moonburn Events across Globe

A space scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued a warning in association with the current solar flare activity on the sun’s surface. Edmund P. Rank, a scientist at NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory claims that within the next 24 to 48 hours, the solar flare activity on the sun could actually create a situation where the moon glows brighter.

Dr. Rank cautions those who wish to witness the brighter moon on Thursday night, especially those living quite close to the equator, wear long pants and sleeves and cover their heads with a hat so as to limit exposure from not only the brightness of the moon, but a particularly strong stream of hot charged particles that can move outward from the sun and cause a rare skin condition known as ‘moonburn.’

“We are not joking about this people,” said Dr. Rank. “Moonburn is as rare as they come but when all the pieces line up as perfectly as these do, i.e. extremely strong solar flare activity which sends x-rays and charged particles toward earth, coupled with Coronal Mass Ejections or CME’s which are the hot charged particles that hurtle toward earth’s atmosphere, you get not only a great show, but a great show and tell.”

Dr. Rank claims that people living in Northern Ireland will have the best chance of experiencing the aurora borealis associated with the heightened flare activity. But again, he cautions “Don’t go outdoors and simply look up at the moon without the proper clothing and headgear or you will be sorry the next day.”

Because the event is short-lived, Dr. Rank believes there is really no threat of an increased risk of skin cancer. “However,” he notes, “if you do live in the northern part of the hemisphere and happen to stay out too long on Thursday evening to catch a glimpse of the heightened Aurora Borealis, you may wind up with some very red cheeks.”

Dr. Rank said that the last time this kind of event happened was in 2003, and after admiring the view of the moon in nothing more than a t-shirt and cargo shorts, he did get quite red. “In fact,” he said, “when I showed up for work a few days later, just about everyone wanted to know where I went on my tropical vacation.”

The Solar Tsunami Headed Toward Earth What NASA Isn’t Saying

From Astronomy Daily:

While NASA was trying to get our attention by telling us a Solar Tsunami is nothing to worry about and would only be responsible for bringing the Aurora Borealis further south for viewing, the very fact that the term tsunami was being used should have tipped us off that this was no ordinary magnetic field headed our way. We saw the effects of the tsunami that hit Indonesia and it was not all pink and green ribbons of light. It was death and destruction. If you’re going to use a word like tsunami, you better be ready to back it up with facts, which NASA unfortunately could not.

A tip off that something bigger than just a pretty light show in the night sky is that NASA is putting off repairs of the space station until Friday. Hmmm, wonder why? Is that a wait-and-see attitude? Why spend the money on the space station if there was a chance of it being obliterated Wednesday morning? Hmmm? Just a hunch.

All NASA would say is that a larger than normal solar flare was spotted on the surface of the Sun and it was headed toward Earth and was expected to reach us by early in the morning on August 4^th. If you are one of those people who wait until the Vernal Equinox in spring to stand an egg on its head, then you were probably that much more interested in this event.

Just what the flare would produce, remained a mystery. The most anyone could say is that it would produce green and pink ribbons across the sky and be visible to anyone living in the northernmost part of the country as long as they aren’t in a highly-lit area. However, if you’ve been fortunate enough to see NASA’s photographs of the flare, what it looked like was a giant fiery door that was headed our way, and our imagination tells us that anything or anyone that may have passed through it, if they did not get burned beyond recognition, would have witnessed one of the most amazing things in their lifetime, that and your cell phones and iPods and other electronic devices were expected to be on the blink temporarily as the doorway reached our atmosphere.

So, whether you were bold enough to stand outdoors in the wee hours of the morning of August 4^th hoping to catch a glimpse of this solar tsunami, or you decided to cower under your bed and hope to hell our imaginations were wrong, either way, it came and went, and there’s really nothing anyone can do about it now. But we are still scratching our heads and saying “what if?”

Next week, we’ll discuss that errant asteroid that’s been headed our way for decades.