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Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Look Skyward: Auroras to Equinoxes



A severe solar storm sent out two coronal mass ejections from the sun on 11 March (an enormous X-class flare) and 15 March 2015. The CMEs do not seem to have disrupted electrical grids or computers, although there have been electrical problems in Ontario, Canada, which may or may not have been caused by the storm. Power in Ontario went down for short periods last week and again on Sunday the 15th and has been flickering for about a week. Ontario's electricity provider, Hydro One, denied that the geomagnetic storm left thousands in the dark across the province; rather it was all due to "a broken insulator" or a "broken line." Discovery reported that the 11 March flare created a radio blackout in large parts of the globe, and scrambled the ionosphere:
Shortly after the huge eruption, that measured X2 on the scale of flare energy, Spaceweather.com reports a radio blackout was detected over large swathes of the globe, including much of the Americas.

“The X-flare scrambled the ionosphere thoroughly so that no decametric radio signals were supported in my part of the world,” said amateur radio astronomer Thomas Ashcraft. “The ionosphere started to reform after about fifteen minutes when stations began to reappear. (The stuff visible during the blackout was my own observatory electricity. Nothing exterior.)”

Based in New Mexico, Ashcraft reports that the blackout was most obvious in the frequency range of 15 MHz to 26 MHz.
A more serious scenario is a favourite with apocalyptic Millennial soothsayers: an X-class CME could wipe out the grid and all our technology. In the summer 2014, NASA admitted that this almost happened on 23 July 2012. Discovery:
Wrapped in a powerful magnetic field, CMEs consist of huge bubbles of energized gas from the sun’s superheated corona (the solar atmosphere). The speed at which the CME travels into interplanetary space and the alighnment of its magnetic field can severely influence that CME’s impact on Earth’s magnetic field. ...

Our planet has a global magnetic field called the magnetosphere, so should a CME hit the magnetosphere at just the right alignment, the CME’s magnetic field can reconnect, causing intense magnetic disruption, injecting the magnetosphere with huge quantities of plasma from the sun. In this situation, the CME is said to be “geoeffective” and the resulting geomagnetic storm can be extreme. Today’s storm is so intense that it far overshadows anything that has come before it in our sun’s current solar cycle. ...

The storm is still ongoing and space weather experts will be closely watching developments. Storms such as these can have global impacts — from overloading powergrids and causing communication outages to satellite damage.




On the night of March 17-18, these unusually strong CMEs reached earth, and created a G4 geomagnetic storm (the second highest level) and auroras across the northern and far southern parts of the earth. I just looked outside my northern window and saw the whole sky on fire, alight with a ghostly, night-vision-green mist. For the duration of this evening, there is a live feed from Yellowknife, Canada, here.


Other observers claim that severe geomagnetic storms spark extreme earthquakes. Yet others speculate that mass die-offs of fish and other water-dwelling animals and birds presage earthquakes. This, too, was in the news today and over the past week or so, on the coast of California, where some 35,000 sea lions lie dead on the beaches (reports here, here and here).

If you believe in these omens, then you may also have noted that this entire week is full of intense astrological predictions. Monday 16 March 2015 marked the last of seven Pluto-Uranus squares (see my earlier posts on the 2012-2015 squares here and here) which have been shocking the world (astrologers claim) with radical changes and conflicts. This square is followed by a total solar eclipse in Pisces and a supermoon spring equinox in Aries, both on 20 March 2015. Eclipses and Supermoons are also associated with earthquakes, by folklore, if not by hard science. AstroShaman reads the signs and portents:
The final Uranus-Pluto square (15°18′ Aries-Capricorn) is here at last on 3/16, number seven out of seven. But don’t [lie] down in your comfy hammock and heave a sigh of relief just yet. This aspect will continue to radiate revolutionary transformation for the rest of the 2010s!

This series of Uranus-Pluto squares is the astrological headliner of the decade, and could be considered the primary catalyst for all the rapid, radical change we’re experiencing. ...

The solar eclipse on 3/20 at 5:36 AM EDT is remarkable for three reasons. It’s in the final degree of Pisces, and occurs about an hour before the Spring Equinox. And it only aspects feminine planets: Venus and the four asteroid goddesses!

But let’s start with the basics. Any solar eclipse is like a supercharged New Moon, and its effects can last many months. Any Pisces New Moon is great for new beginnings in the areas of divine union practices and expressing your inspired creativity.

But, since it lines up at 29°27′ Pisces, this solar eclipse is right on the border of Aries. So for the third month in a row, we need to blend adjacent signs into a lunation interpretation. But how can you coherently combine the radically different energies of Aries and Pisces, the alpha and omega of astrological signs?

For starters, we have a common theme: both Aries and New Moons are about fresh starts, or applying new energy to existing projects. So this adds even more juice to the idea of kickstarting or rekindling spirituality and creativity. ...

[T]his solar eclipse only aspects feminine planets. To be specific, it trines Juno, sextiles Ceres, squares Pallas Athena and semi-sextiles Vesta and Venus. In this context, the superabundance of femininity is more important than the meaning of the specific aspects. In my opinion, this is an amazing opportunity for the divine feminine, already on the rise, to root itself even more firmly into Gaia’s energetic matrix.

The soul-crushing millennia of imbalanced patriarchy – domineering “power over” that selfishly exploits for greed and control – is ending. In order to stave off a horrific environmental catastrophe and restore respect for all of the earth’s living beings, we must embrace our feminine sides. ...

The principle of morphic resonance, also called the “hundredth monkey effect,” radiates the energy of everything you do out to the collective. When you embody these feminine qualities in graceful harmony with the masculine, you make it easier for everyone else to do so as well.
One could argue that all this talk of auroras, earthquakes, dead animals, eclipses, equinoxes, New Moons and ancient gods embodied in squared planets together makes an example of the Hundredth Monkey Effect. Regardless, the auroras are beautiful, with or without the superstitions that surround them.

The view from Donnelly Creek in Alaska, 17 March 2015. Photograph by Sebastian Saarloos/NASA Goddard. Image Source: The Guardian.



























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1 comment:

  1. Dia Sobin (Araqinta)March 18, 2015 at 10:48 PM

    Thanks for posting the Aurora photos, TB... just gorgeous! :-)

    ReplyDelete