Earth dodges another asteroid threat

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Hope they have taken into consideration the possible effects of this --> [FAIR USE - FERPO] Space Science News for February 6, 2000 Small Sunspot, Big Flare: One of the biggest and brightest optical flares of the current sunspot cycle erupted this weekend. The flare was a whopper, but the sunspot group it came from wasn't. The full story, which includes pictures of the flare and a coronal mass ejection, is at:

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--snip Coronal mass ejections can carry up to 10 billion tons of plasma traveling at speeds as high as 2000 km/s. When they collide directly with Earth they can excite geomagnetic storms, which have been linked to satellite communication failures. In extreme cases, such storms can induce electric currents in the Earth and oceans that can interfere with or even damage electric power transmission equipment. Energetic particles and radiation from solar flares reach the Earth is just minutes. The slower-moving material from a coronal mass ejection usually takes days to reach our planet. ---end snip Question: Can this quantity of matter have an unexpected event effect upon a (((BIG ROCK))) with no magnetic field or atmosphere to absorb the brunt of the impact? (BTW, earth usually does)

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), February 08, 2000

Answers

Hope they have taken into consideration the possible effects of this --> [FAIR USE - FERPO] Space Science News for February 6, 2000 Small Sunspot, Big Flare: One of the biggest and brightest optical flares of the current sunspot cycle erupted this weekend. The flare was a whopper, but the sunspot group it came from wasn't. The full story, which includes pictures of the flare and a coronal mass ejection, is at: Link

Proof reading indicated!

-- Michael (mikeymac@uswest.net), February 08, 2000.