Convergence
This story is from a mystical dream which, I later learned, occurred during an actual astronomical event and is strikingly suggestive of it.
Before dawn, the two boys slipped away from the other children. The young ones need protection, the taller boy thought. They made their way to a long disused room, where he drew statuettes from their hiding place and arranged them on a rectangle of old linen. He fingered one of them for a moment, a figurine of reddish colors.
He turned and saw a small opening that had not been visible a moment before. Through this they climbed, emerging into a long corridor formed by shimmering bands of white and red emanating from a distant source. The taller boy peered into the convergence that flared large with blinding light against the darkness, that poured endless streams of hot white and red. He thought he saw an elongated human-like form emerge in the brilliance.
Afterwards, he could not explain all that happened. He remembered hastily forming his request before the audience ended, with the smaller boy helping to recall the old words for what they wanted. Then the being that silently burned replied in words without sound:
It would have been better asked sooner.
The flow ebbs again—but something
can still be shaped.
With that, it blazed suddenly many times hotter, and they fell back from its power and away from that place.
He turned and saw a small opening that had not been visible a moment before. Through this they climbed, emerging into a long corridor formed by shimmering bands of white and red emanating from a distant source. The taller boy peered into the convergence that flared large with blinding light against the darkness, that poured endless streams of hot white and red. He thought he saw an elongated human-like form emerge in the brilliance.
Afterwards, he could not explain all that happened. He remembered hastily forming his request before the audience ended, with the smaller boy helping to recall the old words for what they wanted. Then the being that silently burned replied in words without sound:
It would have been better asked sooner.
The flow ebbs again—but something
can still be shaped.
With that, it blazed suddenly many times hotter, and they fell back from its power and away from that place.
Major solar flare recorded Dec. 5, 2006.
Tsunami-like blast wave rips across the Sun
A blast wave swept across the face of the Sun on Wednesday, rippling outward from the site of a large solar flare. Blast waves that spread all the way across the Sun like this one did are rare, especially when the Sun is in the quiet phase of its 11-year cycle, as it is right now.
Russian Scientists Expect Powerful Solar Flares
Russia's geophysical forecast center said Wednesday it expects powerful solar flares, vast explosions in the sun's atmosphere around sunspots, to occur in the near future. Solar flares can expel billion-ton clouds of electrified gas or plasma into space at a speed of 1 million miles per hour. Eruptions from the sun can damage satellites and disrupt electrical and communications systems on Earth.
"An X9 solar flare was registered last Tuesday. Over 30 years of regular X-ray observations of the sun, only about 25 powerful flares have been registered, and they had never previously been observed in the solar minimum [the lowest point of the sun's 11-year activity cycle]. This is surprising, because normally such flares occur at the peak of the sun's activity," the center said.
Propagation Forecast Bulletin #51 de K7RA
The past couple of days have seen robust solar activity, with flares and strong solar wind. On Wednesday and Thursday, December 6 and 7, the planetary A index rose to 28, then 25. On December 5 a large X9 class solar flare emerged from the sun's eastern side, but it wasn't earth directed. This was from a large sunspot 930, which drove the sunspot number to 59 on the same day as the solar flare, the same level as five days earlier. Wednesday, December 6 saw a smaller X6 flare, and currently early Friday morning we are seeing a strong solar wind, with the interplanetary magnetic field pointing south, making us vulnerable. There is a chance of more flares, which might be bad news for the ARRL 10 Meter Contest this weekend.
Flare activity caused a 10.7 cm solar flux reading at Penticton, British Columbia to jump off the scale. The noon reading showed a solar flux of 573.4, and had to be adjusted downward to 103 for the day.
E33Sunglasses for a Solar Observatory
In December 2006, an enormous solar flare erupted on the Sun's surface. The blast hurled a billion-ton cloud of gas (a coronal mass ejection, or CME) toward Earth and sparked days of intense geomagnetic activity with Northern Lights appearing across much of the United States.
A blast wave swept across the face of the Sun on Wednesday, rippling outward from the site of a large solar flare. Blast waves that spread all the way across the Sun like this one did are rare, especially when the Sun is in the quiet phase of its 11-year cycle, as it is right now.
Russian Scientists Expect Powerful Solar Flares
Russia's geophysical forecast center said Wednesday it expects powerful solar flares, vast explosions in the sun's atmosphere around sunspots, to occur in the near future. Solar flares can expel billion-ton clouds of electrified gas or plasma into space at a speed of 1 million miles per hour. Eruptions from the sun can damage satellites and disrupt electrical and communications systems on Earth.
"An X9 solar flare was registered last Tuesday. Over 30 years of regular X-ray observations of the sun, only about 25 powerful flares have been registered, and they had never previously been observed in the solar minimum [the lowest point of the sun's 11-year activity cycle]. This is surprising, because normally such flares occur at the peak of the sun's activity," the center said.
Propagation Forecast Bulletin #51 de K7RA
The past couple of days have seen robust solar activity, with flares and strong solar wind. On Wednesday and Thursday, December 6 and 7, the planetary A index rose to 28, then 25. On December 5 a large X9 class solar flare emerged from the sun's eastern side, but it wasn't earth directed. This was from a large sunspot 930, which drove the sunspot number to 59 on the same day as the solar flare, the same level as five days earlier. Wednesday, December 6 saw a smaller X6 flare, and currently early Friday morning we are seeing a strong solar wind, with the interplanetary magnetic field pointing south, making us vulnerable. There is a chance of more flares, which might be bad news for the ARRL 10 Meter Contest this weekend.
Flare activity caused a 10.7 cm solar flux reading at Penticton, British Columbia to jump off the scale. The noon reading showed a solar flux of 573.4, and had to be adjusted downward to 103 for the day.
E33Sunglasses for a Solar Observatory
In December 2006, an enormous solar flare erupted on the Sun's surface. The blast hurled a billion-ton cloud of gas (a coronal mass ejection, or CME) toward Earth and sparked days of intense geomagnetic activity with Northern Lights appearing across much of the United States.
Spirits of Fire and Light. Oil paint drawing on paper.
