As luck would have it, last week we happened to be out of town when a huge coronal mass ejection (CME) burst out from the Sun and sped on its way to Earth. Normally these solar wind gusts rush out at about 1 kilometer per second, but this one doubled the speed limit, blasting across space at 2 kilometers per second. Solar physicists were amazed at the sight they were seeing from the SOHO spacecraft. Radar operators, HAM operators, owners of satellites, grid systems, GPS units, and communications links, and oil and gas pipelines — not to mention the folks up on the space station — girded themselves for a big geomagnetic storm. We got it! On the 29th, Earth’s skies lit up with auroral displays and there were some outages in telecommunications and other industries. Personally, we missed yet another great chance to see the aurorae — folks here in New England tell me they saw a glowing red sky with moving fingers of light overhead. Darn!

Hard on the heels of that storm came another massive ejection — in fact the most massive ever recorded — on November 5, 2003. SOHO caught it, as well as the GOES weather satellite, using a special soft x-ray telescope. Theoretically we have a chance to see aurorae on the night of the 6th, but I’m not holding my breath. It’s been cloudy here all day and the weather forecast doesn’t bode well.

Most folks have heard (or are faintly aware of) the fact that our Sun goes through an 11-year-long cycle which culminates in a period of solar maximum — a time when the Sun is very active. So, are we seeing solar max? Nope. In fact, solar max ended last year and the Sun is now headed toward solar minimum, when sunspots are theoretically fewer in number. Still, as the Sun has shown us this past week, it still has a few tricks up its sleeve as it slides toward its supposedly quiescent period. And there’s no reason to believe it will stop. The coronal mass ejections at the root of the huge outbursts are caused by solar magnetic events that release huge amounts of energy. The Sun’s magnetic fields get coiled up tighter than rubber bands as it rotates through its 27-day cycle. Something has to give, and its usually the magnetic fields around sunspot regions. When they do, watch out! A coronal mass ejection is in the making — lighting up our skies and making life interesting for all the folks who study Earth’s magnetic field interactions with the solar wind, GPS users, grid owners, and many others whose equipment is affected by geomagnetic storms.