Word: earths
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Fortunately for earth dwellers, the March flare occurred on the easternmost edge of the sun and thus aimed its full force away from the earth. But on March 10, when the sun's stately rotation brought the turbulent group of sunspots to a position more directly facing the earth, a second, only slightly less powerful flare erupted in the region. Eight minutes later, traveling at the speed of light, a blast of X ray and ultraviolet radiation seared the earth's upper atmosphere. Within an hour, high-energy protons began to arrive, followed in three days by a massive bombardment...
...atmosphere expanded farther into space. Low-orbiting satellites, encountering that fringe and running into increasing drag, slowed and dropped into still lower orbits. A secret Defense Department satellite began a premature and fatal tumble, and the tracking system that keeps exact tabs on some 19,000 objects in earth orbit briefly lost track of 11,000 of them. Solar Max descended by as much as half a mile in a single day, almost certainly hastening its demise...
...earth, the flare's effects were equally disruptive. Shortwave transmissions were interrupted, some for as long as 24 hours, and satellite communication and a Coast Guard loran navigation system were temporarily overwhelmed. Powerful transient magnetic fields, generated in the upper atmosphere by the flare, induced electrical currents in transmission lines and wiring, and mystified homeowners reported automatic garage doors opening and closing on their own. A surge of flare-induced current was blamed by Hydro- Quebec officials for shutting down the power company's system and blacking out parts of Montreal and the province of Quebec for as long...
...most dramatic manifestation of the solar flare was the two-night, spectacular display of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, that awed Paul Avellar and millions of others. Arriving high-energy electrons, deflected by the earth's magnetic field, spilled into the upper atmosphere near the north and south polar regions, which are unprotected by magnetic-field lines. Acting much as does the electrical current in a neon sign, the electrons banged into oxygen atoms, causing them to emit red and green light...
From the beginnings of history and literature, human beings have also invoked the sun. In rejecting peace offers from Darius before the battle of Gaugamela, Alexander the Great explained, "Heaven cannot brook two suns, nor earth two masters." And in 1911, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, speaking of his nation, declared, "No one can dispute with us the place in the sun that...