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Technology

Solar Flare May Produce Geomagnetic Storm 105

Posted by Hemos from the wham-bam-thank-you-sun dept.
glyneth writes "No, it's not a child of Storm and Magneto, but this weekend Earth has a 40% chance of experiencing a geomagnetic storm, according to this article. It could likely affect satellites in orbit along with power on the ground, as happened in 1989 in North America."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Solar Flare May Produce Geomagnetic Storm More

Solar Flare May Produce Geomagnetic Storm

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  • Aw Shoot! (Score:5)

    by PopeAlien ( 164869 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @02:25PM (#931795) Homepage Journal
    If this happens, I may have to shut down my PC over the weekend and go out in the sun.. Have you seen that thing? Its Hot!
  • Should also produce some awesome auroras over most of the U.S., maybe tonight and probably tomorrow night!! kewl!!
  • Maybe it's a good thing we don't have people living in the international space station yet ;)
  • I have an excuse why I didn't call my girlfriend now...
  • I remember the last time this happened it was kinda cool, all kinds of funky stuff happened to things electical in the north eastern united states and parts of canada i believe. Hopefully when it happens this time, the electical company will have some warning and be ready to go fix stuff if necessary, not like the utilites in this country could give a rats behind if you don't have air conditioning for awhile.

  • Uhh (Score:1)

    by mindstrm ( 20013 )
    Didn't this happen a few weeks ago?
  • so it might as well be me that says it:

    There's gonna be a hot time in the old town tonight...

  • Re:oribtal tanning saloon (Score:3)

    by RingTailedLemur ( 184300 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @02:35PM (#931802)
    NASA has done loads of studies on radiation and astronauts.
    There's a really good write-up of it here [nationalacademies.org].
  • hehe i told you all it was smart to prepare for y2k heh, i still have all my ammo and all the dehydrated food i bought, hehe know any were i can get a dehydrated keg :)

  • a smaller one hit us on Wednesday (Score:3)

    by fence ( 70444 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @02:36PM (#931804) Homepage
    According to CNN [cnn.com], we were hit by a massiv e solar flare [cnn.com] on Wednesday at around 6:30am EDT.

    Wednesday's flare caused a few blackouts.

    Today's solar flare was predicted, and was expected to be larger than the one that hit us on Wendesday.
    ---
    Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
  • I work in the cellular industry and I'm glad I won't have to stand next to my test transmitter during the storm. Not like anything is really going to happen, but It would certinly affect the data I gather from the drive I have to do for that transmitter... :-)
  • Solar flares are happening all the time, but this one is a lot bigger than average, which is why we're hearing about it.
  • yeah i remember that etg's irc network keept going down cause of loss of power, hehe thats why i have a ups
  • (Insert gratuitous /. reference of your choice here)

    If this generates a few mutants, I predict that
    next year's X-men sequel will be old hat.

  • This is the end my friends - nice knowin' you all..... except all the Bills of America!!!!
  • ...from this:

    The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees.

  • There has been some great VHF band openings for the past few days. I heard several people in Dallas (I'm in Houston) talking on 2 meters. I also heard some people in Indiana down on 6 meters. Cool stuff.

  • Want to see the charts? (Score:4)

    by Quincunx42 ( 186316 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @02:40PM (#931812)
    Go here to see charts and graphs of solar activity. [maj.com] You will also notice the little red box in the upper corner is displaying a "Storm!" happening right now. I noticed it doing the same earlier this week.
  • Hey, this isn't like those people who went to see nuclear testing and now have cancer is it?

    I checked out the site, but there were no hard numbers as to the probability of a really disasterous serious sun storm. Anybody have this kind of info?

    kick some CAD [cadfu.com]
  • REPENT OR BE STRUCK DOWN BY FIRE AND BRIMSTONE!
    Or if nothing else more charged particles and radiation will hit you.

    Oh never mind. I guess it wasn't that funny anyway.
  • erm, the article you linked to said radioblackouts...
  • I'm not gonna jump on the "I knew this 3 days ago" bandwagon, but I did. :) Infact, I listened to my shortwave last night before I went to bed, and overheard a conversation between 3 HAM radio operators about it. They apparently didnt think it was gonna be a big deal compared to other similar occurances in the past.


    Bowie J. Poag

  • ...the only thing that can produce significant OpenBSD downtimes.


    The Second Amendment Sisters [sas-aim.org]
  • oops--left out a word....I meant to post:

    Wednesday's flare caused a few radio blackouts.
    ---
    Interested in the Colorado Lottery?
  • www.spaceweather.com

    if it ain't broke, then fix it 'till it is!
  • ...waiting for the fireworks.
  • The sad thing about these storms they are like hurricanes you can predict them. Yet you can not know the damage they will do untill they hit. So the only thing you can is prepare yourself like it is a hurricane for this thing. It is time to pull out your propane stove.
  • Unless it is an especially violent geomagnetic storm it should pose no huge threat to astronauts on the ISS. The ISS lives in low earth orbit (unlike many satellites which are at geosynchronous orbit) and as a consequence it is shielded quite well by Earth's magnetic field.
  • I'd be shocked if you even noticed it. You're not going to get much ionosphere skip at 800 MHz. You aren't going to get any significant current induced in your cellular tower, it's not big enough for that and besides, it's supposed to handle lightning.

    Bruce

  • Wow (Score:2)

    by smoondog ( 85133 )
    Geomagnetic Storms are cool. There should be great northern lights this week for the northerners. Does anyone know why power grids are specificallly affected?

    -- Moondog
  • Yes. I realize.

    I recall within the last couple weeks, there was an extremely large 'Coronal Mass Ejection' heading towards earth. It was posted on /., and the TV crews explained about geomagnetic storms, power fluctuations, etc. possibly happening.
    Is this one that much bigger than the one a couple weeks ago?
  • Yep. We're in the height of the 11-year solar activity cycle. Check out the Space Weather Bureau [spaceweather.com] for more info.


    blessings,

  • Oh darn, I've got two logins at once. Rob, something's really messed up now.

  • Take a look! (Score:3)

    by KFury ( 19522 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @03:17PM (#931829) Homepage
    If you want more than charts and graphs, check out this realtime picture of Auroral Activity in the Northern Hemisphere [noaa.gov].

    It's usually cool to look at, but now it's fascinating!

    Kevin Fox
  • Hey, not only am I going to shut off my PC, i'm going to the great white north to drink beer and raise a ruckus at Spiderfest(/punkfest) in Onterio =:-)
  • In fact, there was another X-class coronal ejection (oh... baby) today. The one in the Discovery article happened last Tuesday.


    blessings,

  • This whole thing... (Score:3)

    by Flounder ( 42112 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @03:21PM (#931832)
    seems like a world domination plot by Dr. Evil.

    "I will bring your satellites, your power grids, your cellular phones, and your governments too their knees unless you give me... $1 million dollars!"

  • Space.com is reporting [space.com] that this is the biggest solar flare in 6 years aimed in our direction.

    Time to stop the local nutcase, steal his aluminum foil hat, and head for the hills!

  • [maj.com]
    Go here to see charts and graphs of solar activity.


    Holy shit! It's completely off the scale!

    Mankind is doomed! Doomed I tell you! Our only hope is aluminum foil! Lots and lots of aluminum foil!

    k.
    --
    "In spite of everything, I still believe that people
    are really good at heart." - Anne Frank

  • More Information Here (Score:3)

    by Phrogman ( 80473 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @03:26PM (#931835)

    There is more information [spaceref.com] on the Solar eruption over here on Spaceref.com [spaceref.com].

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Please? At least when I'm driving down the highway and the guy in front of me is swerving because he's pissed at the person on the other end?
  • Isn't it wonderful to know that They Might Be Giants' music is so educational? Everyone should have their CDs! lol...

  • SOHO (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    SOHO images can be interesting during storms: http://umbra.gsfc.nasa.gov/images/latest.html

  • @#lj$$;kzSDlkjsdf)*)8 (Score:4)

    by John Jorsett ( 171560 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @03:41PM (#931840)
    I think it's already affecting the ))DF)(#$*)0fa0d*)#*$)*#$)0808myasdfjthgkbndjfvaerk t ad ertkh ah

  • No you don't. These EM storms don't affect biological organisms at all...

    ...unless you have a very wierd prosthetic you aren't telling us about

  • Guess its not a good time for me to take advantage of the Dish Network's [dishnetwork.com] free satellite dish promotion this week.

    Any scientists out there have an opinion on what subscribers can expect this weekend?
  • Go here to see charts and graphs of solar activity.

    "This page cannot be displayed." For web servers, I'll bet 'damage from 40 solar flares' .lt. 'damage from one SlashDot link'

    (How the heck do you get a 'less than' symbol thru the /. tag filter?)
  • (How the heck do you get a 'less than' symbol thru the /. tag filter?)

    Use &lt; for < and &gt; for >.

    --

  • I got a sunburn this morning, around 10am to noon. I don't think I was in the sun long enough to have normally been burned.

    And this two days after my doctor nagged me about being careful with sunburn.

    I'm currently hunting for a UV index chart. I wanna see if I just experienced really bad timing...


    --

  • Real movies of the event (Score:4)

    by rhet ( 29034 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @04:28PM (#931846) Homepage
    You can view movies of the event taken by instruments on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) [nasa.gov] satellite here [nasa.gov]. These are pretty neat to see as you can see the actual coronal mass ejection (CME) as it shoots out from the sun. This is the largest such event of this solar cycle. Another great space weather resource is the NOAA site here [noaa.gov].

  • Better movies of the event (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Haven't yet checked out the SOHO page, but TRACE caught it:

    http://vestige.lmsal.com/TRACE/POD /TRACEpod.html [lmsal.com]

  • In case you were wondering... (Score:3)

    by evanbd ( 210358 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @04:44PM (#931848)
    The reason that power grids are affected is reasonably simple. There is a large influx of charged particles coming our way at high speeds. Charged particles in motion set up magnetic fields. A changing magnetic field produces currents in loops of wire. A power grid contains LOTS of wire. You can read all about it in any physics text, under Ampere's law, and the Biot-Savart Law, and Faraday's law of induction. This will occur in any loop of wire, but we care about the electrical grid because we care about what form of current comes out of it, and that could change. The earth's magnetic field means that the majority of the particles come in near the poles, causing more problems for those in the north or south. Of course, the northern hemispher is pointed closer to the sun right now (that's why its summer), so the north gets affected more than the south (south of the equator that is).
  • heh, I live in the area, the locals are so afraid of all the kids cause they're all old and 80 and shit, heh. It's refreshing really, to have something like spiderfest in such a conservative area.

    -- iCEBaLM

  • Hydro Quebec (Score:3)

    by Bryan K. Feir ( 11060 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @04:58PM (#931850)
    Part of the reason that Hydro Quebec suffered such major losses the previous time is that they run their main distribution network at a higher voltage; I think it's at 635kV instead of the 500kV that most other distribution networks use. Now, under normal circumstances, higher voltage => lower current for the same power => less I2R losses, and thus a more efficient system. Unfortunately, the cost of the more efficient system is that it's a lot more prone to corona effects, which causes problems when the air starts to get ionized, as happens in a thunderstorm or heavy solar storm.

    Other problem with Hydro Quebec is just the sheer length of the lines, which of course they can't do much about given the sheer size of the province. Solar storms play hell with local magnetic fiels, and the longer a power line is, the more power gets induced in it when the magnetic field changes...

    Of course, given how much of the system had to be replaced after the ice storm a couple of years back, hopefully they've better isolated some of the distribution lines by now.

    -- Bryan Feir
  • I stayed awake in physics..

    The [moving] magnetic field induces a current in the wires. This extra current causes the power companies to shut down the grid in certain areas as a precautionary measure.

  • I'm gonna hang a wire out ma
    windah 'n see if c'n get the Van
    Allan belt ta kick in 88
    jillean watts so's ah kin git
    my ion drive to warp factor
    me back so I can tell myself
    not to move in wi't that liein'
    bitch Vivian.

    | x |

    Got migrane,face pain
    toothaches, sinus
    flu,nausea or other
    conditions pertaining
    to the head & throat
    ...make an aluminum
    foil hood, move around,
    so as not to be reaquired
    as a target; & don't
    look at a tv tube
    the morphological
    similarities between a
    MICROWAVE LASER &
    TV tubes
    is beyond the scope
    of this message

  • solar radiation have?

    Since it has a way of disrupting the geomagnetic field, I was wondering how this might effect life?

    Example: The human body contains substantial amounts of iron (in red blood cells). Could these types of solar emanations do wierd things like polarize that iron?

    Mayhaps it would explain why the trolls are more restless than usual today ;-)
  • Not shielded that well. Especially over the South Atlantic Anomaly, high-energy protons can come in and give astronauts quite a dose. One of the astronauts who flew on Mir mentioned that he could see the Cerenkov radiation flashses inside his eyes as the protons went through his head while Mir went through the SAA.

    Fifty miles of atmosphere is a shield that's going to be awfully hard for a space station to equal, let alone beat.
    --

  • Yeah, it probably has a lot to do with the VHF skip. The X-rays from the flare probably generated a lot of strong ionization, and I understand that often pushes the MUF up pretty high.
    --
  • the liftoff of the habitation module in Russia?
  • Yeah, the aurora's should be happening tonight in some parts of Canada but even more spectacular shows are supposed to occur tomorrow.
  • When the magnetic field is depressed away from the sun and as the earth rotates you have a changing magnetic field. Now in northern Canada the ground is solid non-conductive rock. On top of this rock plane was a loop of high tension wires spanning thousands of miles. When you have a loop of conducter and a changing magnetic field you generate electricity.

    Unfortunately the power grid was designed to carry AC high voltage, low current power. The storm produced DC low voltage, high current power. When they tried to bleed the power off into the ground they discovered that a non conductive ground doesn't work very well as a power sync. As a result wires melted, transformers blew, and all power was disrupted.

    Since then they have broken up the wire loops so there is little to no induction. Bored their grounding spikes deeper into the ground to insure that they could actually ground circuits. And placed many more circuit breakers into place.

    I think if there is a problem it won't be a result of a power overload in the grid itself.
  • This site [eham.net] has great links to solar information. The solar flux for the past 24 hours has been up to 232, about the highest I've seen for this cycle.
  • At least if you are going to quote someone you could name the source. Seems to me this was from a song I heard by Moxy Fruvis (sp?), not sure if they wrote it however.

  • Re:oribtal tanning salon (Score:3)

    by Claudius ( 32768 ) on Friday July 14, 2000 @06:09PM (#931861)
    ...he could see the Cerenkov radiation flashses inside his eyes...

    While I don't doubt that he saw something, and it may well have been correlated to enhanced levels of radiation experienced in the SAA, claims of GeV+ protons produced from geomagnetism are difficult to believe. (Electrons are accelerated to relativistic speeds in solar flares and coronal mass ejections, the most violent geomagnetic phenomena in the heliosphere, but the ions remain non-relativistic). IMO a more plausible explanation for what the cosmonaut saw would be that shielding from the cosmic ray flux was lower in that region due to a thinner atmosphere/ionosphere above him, so more ambient cosmic rays could pass through his body.

    Fifty miles of atmosphere is a shield that's going to be awfully hard for a space station to equal, let alone beat.

    I agree with you, but my point was that the danger from energetic particles of heliospheric origin would be much lower for the ISS than for a satellite in geosynchronous orbit. Shielding from ambient cosmic ray flux is a different matter altogether--irrespective of the level of solar activity, people living in Santa Fe (7000 ft.) receive a much higher dose of cosmic rays than people living in Los Angeles (sea level). In LEO, away from the magnetic poles, Earth's magnetic field offers quite good protection from energetic plasma streaming from the Sun. The plasma can still find its way into the magnetosphere eventually, but this is an indirect process, with most of the highly energetic plasma confined to magnetic flux tubes far above the orbiting space station.
  • Last summer, MSNBC had discussed the likely- hood of solar flares and coronal mass ejections in this, the year 2000- screwing up satellites and ruining everyone's day.

    Hey, I wonder if we'll ever be able to manipulate the solar wind as a weapon? It would be a great planetary defense strategy: maybe for taking out an invading army's communication net. What structures would have to be in place for something like that?
  • You don't have a girlfriend. Liar.
  • And I thought that movie 'Frequency' was a load of BS!

  • The BBC reports a solar flare every 3-4 weeks, so far no fun.

    I suppose you run to an inner room or basement whenever you hear tornado sirens too.

  • Even better - time-lapse video of above (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Too tired (0435 hrs UK time) can't remember HTML. Anyhoo - http://www.sec.noaa.gov/pmap/AnimateN.html is what you need!
  • Some of this post is somewhat related to this story. A few years ago the American Geophysical Union had an election for their next president. One candidate was an Italian (IIRC), while the other candidate was James Van Allen. Van Allen was going to be the obvious winner but there was a need for two candidates. Anyway, Van Allen opponent said that it was a honor to run against this worthy candidate and that he had no pretext of winning. To paraphrase what he said: I read a newspaper article in Italy describing the shape of a donut as being similar in shape to Van Allen Belts instead of being described the other way around.

    Thank god this planet does have a decent magnetic field (thank you Earth's outer core). One day we can discus helioseismology and magnetopause.

    Some ppl have commented about the Northern Lights. I once saw a great display of them except that we had to look to the south and, later on, overhead, to see them. Did I mention that it was freaking cold.

  • Aren't there bears outside?

    (PA Joke)

  • Nope... (Score:1)

    by Eso ( 205333 )
    Sorry, there are already four people in the Fantastic Four... thus you we would be a fifth. While "The Fantastic Five" would still follow the naming convention (by being an alliteration, I think), they would have to shell out the cash for new uniforms.

    Eso
    This is my sig, and I'm sticking to it:

    I'd rather be pepper-sprayed by a mountie,

  • I think the song was actually an educational ditty from like the 50's before They Might Be Giants popularized it.

    Is it actually accurate? Is most of the light from the sun caused by incandesence? It seems likely to me that if you have a big ball of plasma, creating and bombarding itself with high energy photons (gamma radiation from fusion) that you'll get some significant ammount of flouresence taking place, but then, I'm no heliologist.

  • I think one hits us every "Trollin' Tuesday".


    ---
  • that would be $1 000 000, right? :-)
  • Well, it took ages, but I found a series of UV measurements. It's from a satellite, so presumably that cuts out the effect of clouds, pollution, etc.

    Global UV on the 10th [nasa.gov]
    Global UV on the 11th [nasa.gov]
    Global UV on the 12th [nasa.gov]
    Global UV on the 13th [nasa.gov]
    Global UV on the 14th [nasa.gov]
    Global UV on the 15th [nasa.gov] (well, it'll be there tomorrow (Saturday))

    Now, to my eye, there's more "higher colour" on today's picture (the 14th). The yellow band goes across the ocean, instead of breaking up. The orange patch over Moscow is larger. The purple patches over Indo-China are huge on Friday.

    I suspect there was more UV today than would have been without this solar flare.

    And I'm now quite pink. If only I'd had my peril sensitive sunglasses: I'd have just *known* that a major astronomical event had happened, and was about to threaten my life!


    --
  • My wife plans on doing some AM and shortwave DXing tonight and/or tomorrow night...any information on how this could affect the HF and lower bands?

    Also, I'm hoping we'll be able to view the auroras from here...they've said they should be visible perhaps as far south as Texas and New Mexico. (Imagine...we could be seeing real auroras from Aurora, Colorado...)

    Eric
    --

  • Don't know 'bout a dehydrated keg, but I've got some dehydrated water for you :-)

  • Let's see.. a maximus occurs every eleven years or so, so by my calculations the last one we had was in 1989. Unlikely there'll be any damage? You might want to read the article [discovery.com] (linked to in the above article) at discovery.com, for some info on what happened in '89. Power disruptions, satellite problems, burgler alarms going off, etc.

    l

    Remember, this isn't the "y2k bug"; the alarmists in this case are knowledgeable, rational scientists that are supposed to know what they're talking about, not uninformed spokespeople and politicians telling us it's the end of the world. Of course, science, particularly that relating to space and other things of which we have little relatively little knowledge, is often not an exact science, but the doomsayers in this case do have history on their side. I'm gonna wear sunscreen just in case.

  • unfortunatly power companies in the states have little (if any warning). NOAA often posts a warning and the observed information in the same minute. the only system in the world that currently has any real advanced warning system is the power grid in England and Wales. they have about a 45 minute advanced warning of geomagnetic activity and how it will effect the power grid.

  • Re:Uhh (Score:1)

    by Telik ( 16630 )
    CME generally take 2 to 3 days to reach us, so tuesdays story is still of concern.
  • Strange.. I thought TCP took care of this problem.

    --
    +++ATH
  • For hours of fun, tell them you are doing the orienteering merit badge this weekend. Put together a large, complicated course, all navigable via compass. Set the scouts loose and watch them wander.
  • unfortunatly they still don't see a problem. Hydro Quebec is still going by NOAA's K index, this is a index that measures the change in magnetic activity over the course of 3 hours and magnetic storms can change very rapidly so when NOAA issues a K-index observation you have no idea if the change they are showing occured in a minute or gradually over 3 hours. keep in mind that it is the rate of change that will induce currents in the transmission system.
  • www.spaceweather.com [spaceweather.com] (hyperlinked)

    Also check out Nasa's science site [nasa.gov] about this event. They also have an active email newsletter that keeps you up to date on interesting space stuff like this.

  • Ordinarily I wouldn't respond, but...

    have you considered therapy [fight-club.com]?

  • I listened to a VHF station from Greece in the Czech Republic (> 1000 km) on (I think) Wednesday 12:xx MET DST (i.e. 6:xx EDT). Even the RDS functioned.
  • Try This Link [216.2.22.33]. Some ISP's might be caching really *really* old DNS data.
  • A flare on Wednesday starting affecting SOHO [nasa.gov], and WIND.

    The high-energy particles cause bright points on CCDs. This affects things like star trackers and telescopes. Star trackers have a hard time differentiating between the particle hits and the real stars. The telescope images get "snow" in them.

    Also, memory bits and other electronic switches can get flipped by impacts of high-energy particles.


    disclaimer: I work for SOHO, but I don't speak for them, etc.

  • wmSpaceWeather shows this kind of info on a widget.

    I can't find a web page, but tarballs are available here [lanl.gov]. rpms and debs are also available from other sources.

  • I don't know if this has anything at all to do with it, but here in southeast Wiconsin (near Milwaukee) we had some weird lightning stuff going on on Thursday night. Had been a humid couple of days, was expecting rain. But then about midnight (central, I suppose it was friday morning) it starting lightninging.. nonstop. From the windows it looked almost like a strobe light. And almost no thunder. Then, about half and hour later, it stopped, and started raining.

    I know this is probably unrelated, but it seems to me that the static electricity built up by this kind of storm could do this? Or am I completely off-base here? Anybody have a clue? Anybody reading this?

  • Wednesday's flare caused a few blackouts.

    Today's solar flare was predicted, and was expected to be larger than the one that hit us on Wendesday.

    The event that happened Wednesday, and the one predicted for Friday and Saturday are two parts of the same event. Wednesday the X-rays from this flare/CME event hit, heating up the ionosphere and causing radio interference. Friday and Saturday the charged particles should hit, hopefully whacking the entire magnetosphere around and causing some nice aurora.

    The X-rays get to the Earth from the Sun almost instantaeously (well, about 6 minutes IIRC) because they're travelling at the speed of light. The charged particles take several days to get here because they're moving much more slowly.

  • According to CNN, we were hit by a massiv e solar flare on Wednesday at around 6:30am EDT. Wednesday's flare caused a few blackouts. Today's solar flare was predicted, and was expected to be larger than the one that hit us on Wendesday.

    It's the same flare. First, the X-rays hit the atmosphere and generate bursts of RF energy as they interact. Ther the reletivly slow charged particles hit a few days later and potentially cause a geomagnetic storm. The latter event affects technology more than the former.

  • I agree with you, but my point was that the danger from energetic particles of heliospheric origin would be much lower for the ISS than for a satellite in geosynchronous orbit.
    Well, of course. Geosync is in the outer Van Allen radiation belt!
    --
  • Ok, how in Gehennom does that rate (4, Funny)???
  • Incandescence is the emission of visible light by a hot object. No doubt the fusion process itself produces some photons (although I could be wrong), but when matter is heated (i.e. energy is added to its electrons to raise them above the ground state), the electrons will spontaneously emit photons so as to lower their energy states. This is the exact same thing that happens with an incandescing light bulb. So the sun actually is incandescing.

    Fluorescence is different but I'm not really clear on how it works; I don't know whether the sun fluoresces or not.

    Keep in mind this is all based on my understanding; I am not a physicist and I could be completely wrong.

  • High-Frequency Active Auroral Research Project
    Homepage here [navy.mil]
    This is a controversial project that might be of what you are talking about. There is a book out about it Angels Don't Play this HAARP [xyz.net] by Dr. Nick Begich and Jeane Manning. Pretty good read. Basically states that depending on the frequency that they push up into the sky, they can do some really funky stuff. Good references to some work Tesla has worked on too...

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