Flares emit radiation at wavelengths ranging from radio frequencies at the low end to gamma rays at the high end. Most of the radiation, however appears at wavelengths above visible light. Flares, which are associated with sunspots, are driven by energy released when magnetic fields rising from deep in the sun break and reconnect, releasing large amounts of energy. When extreme ultraviolet and x-ray radiation from the flares reach Earth, they disrupt the ionosphere over low latitudes on the sunlit half of the planet. This can disrupt low- and high-frequency radio communications, such as shortwave broadcast services. Outside of Earth's magnetic field, the incoming high-energy protons form what scientists call a radiation storm, which can disrupt or disable satellites and threated astronauts conducting spacewalks. Because the x-rays and the far-UV light travel at the speed of light, the communications disruptions appear in advance of any geomagnetic or radiation storm the arriving charged particles trigger. Sometimes not by much. In 2005, physicists were stunned by an intense radiation storm from a solar flare; the protons reached Earth in 15 minutes instead of taking a day or more. Light takes 8 minutes to arrive from the sun. Space-weather forecasters pay special attention to strong flares, in no small part because they accompany fast coronal-mass ejections.
Mark Sappenfield
Dear Reader,
About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:
“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”
If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.
But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.
The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.
We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”
If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.
