Aug. 13, 2010 – RACOBS meeting. Weather prevented an outdoor observing session so an indoor roundtable discussion was held. Approximately 18 members showed up with the pre-announced topic of “Top 10 best and worst astronomy experiences” on their minds. Each member shared his/her story. Even a couple of our junior members shared their stories. After the meeting, most of the group went to Tripps to eat.
Aug. 27, 2010 – Regular meeting. Host Mike Keefe introduced tonight’s speaker Dr. Brand Fortner from the NCSU Physics Dept. Dr. Fortner’s talk was “Space Weather and Why It Matters”. The Club has had a couple of talks on space weather in the past few years, but this one had a new twist – it was scary! It was also very interesting. The main focus was on the “Event of 1859”. The event was a geomagnetic storm that started hitting the earth on Aug. 26 and finally finished on Sept. 2 1859. Two coronal mass ejections erupted from the Sun in rapid succession aimed at the earth. These were “big ones” as Dr. Fortner put it. Although the first one delivered a glancing blow to the earth, it was so powerful that aurorae were seen as far south as Cuba, and a twisting of the magnetic poles of the earth occurred. The early telegraph communications of the US were interrupted.
When the second CME happened, it arrived at the earth with very high energy and very quickly. This time aurorae were seen as far south as Venezuela. This CME produced the largest white light solar flare ever recorded and was observed by Richard Carrington. The storm was later called the “Carrington Event”.
The rest of Dr. Fortner’s talk centered on the question “What if the Event of 1859 happened today?” Here is what would happen:
- Satellites would be damaged
- Astronauts would be at risk
- The earth’s atmosphere would expand causing satellite orbit drag
- The GPS system we rely on would become inoperable
- Radio communications would be disrupted
- Airline passengers would be at radiation risk
- The electric grid would be damaged to the point where it would take years to replace key transformers due to the induced DC current from the power lines.
Dr. Fortner told us about our “Space Weather Bureau” which is a set of satellites, many of which are aging and need replacement. Those satellites are: SOHO, SDO, STEREO, ACE, and LWS. ACE is particularly valuable to predicting space weather.
There was plenty of question and answer after the talk.
In the business meeting, Mike Keefe reminded the group that the next meeting is the RAC swap meet. Bring the items you want to part with and pick up a few new treasures. Doug Lively reminded the group about the upcoming NC Science Festival at UNC on Sept 25. We need a few more volunteers with solar scopes which will be setup near the planetarium. Mike briefly recapped the Web Summit that was held last Friday at Blinco’s. There were many good suggestions to improve the RAC website.
The Sept. 11 Club camping trip to the mountains has been cancelled. Instead we will be holding a public observing session at Harris Lake County Park that day. Jim DelllaPenna gave the last verbal Treasurer’s report. From now on, the reports will be posted on the website before the meeting. This will free up Friday night meeting time. Finally Mike Keefe mentioned the Nov. 9 school event in Fuquay-Varina.
