| Watch carefully and you will see the solar flare at ~12 hrs universal time (UT) that blew high energy protons toward the Earth . . . . . . . Less than 2 hours later (~13:30 hrs UT), the protons arrived at Earth, and blasted the SOHO spacecraft instruments producing a false signal like "snow" in the images and disrupting their normally clear view of the sun. |
Movie (518K animated gif) courtesy of Joe Gurhman, Facility Scientist, Solar Data Analysis Center, and the SOHO-EIT Consortium. |
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| Meanwhile, elsewhere in the Earth's magnetosphere, just 8 minutes after the flare occured . . . . . . . . Xrays arrived at Earth and were detected by the GOES 9 spacecraft at geosynchronous orbit. Xrays are the first warning of a solar disturbance in progress. |
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| Less than two hours later . . . . . . particle counters on the GOES 9 spacecraft rose alarmingly. A warning of a solar proton event in progress was issued by the Space Environment Center |  |
Click here for a list of important solar proton events from 1976 to Nov 1997.
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