# More Auroras on the way?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-auroras-on-the-way/211222>\
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\
**Created:** [November 3, 2003, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-auroras-on-the-way/211222 "2003-11-03T21:54:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2003, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-auroras-on-the-way/211222/1 "2003-11-03T21:54:15Z")

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[Spaceweather](http://www.spaceweather.com) says the sun’s firing bullets at us again:

> [@](#):
>
> Giant sunspot 486 produced another remarkable solar flare on Nov. 2nd at 1725 UT. This one measured X8 on the Richter scale of solar flares. Because the sunspot is nearing the sun’s western limb, the blast was not aimed squarely at Earth. Even so, a coronal mass ejection (CME) is heading our way. Auroras could appear on Nov. 3rd or 4th when the electrified cloud delivers a glancing blow to Earth’s magnetic field.

So if you missed the show last week, you still might get lucky tonight or tomorrow.

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**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2003, 9:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-auroras-on-the-way/211222/2 "2003-11-03T21:57:38Z")

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In which case you’d miss the aurora.

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**Author:** ![if6was9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e47c2d/32.png) [@if6was9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/if6was9)\
**Post date:** [November 3, 2003, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-auroras-on-the-way/211222/3 "2003-11-03T23:03:26Z")

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Wow! You whooshed me for about 30 seconds there, **lieu**! 😃

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**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\
**Post date:** [November 4, 2003, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-auroras-on-the-way/211222/4 "2003-11-04T22:34:54Z")

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As a thoughtful parting gift, the sunspot that was responsible for last week’s show shot off what might possibly be the most powerful solar flare ever recorded just before rotating around to the other side of the sun. Because we’re so tangential to the blast, I doubt we’ll see a repetition of last week’s auroral display, but check out the pictures on the SOHO page. This was one monster explostion.

[http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2003\_11\_04/](http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/hotshots/2003_11_04/)

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**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\
**Post date:** [November 5, 2003, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-auroras-on-the-way/211222/5 "2003-11-05T02:24:47Z")

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This article says there may have been more sunspots since the 1940s than in the previous 1000 years:

[http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99994321](http://www.newscientist.com/news/print.jsp?id=ns99994321)