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(music)

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What comes to mind when you think of Halloween? Trick-or-treating,

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jack-o’-lanterns, ghouls and goblins?

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(Screeching)  But the sun? Probably not.

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But, just five years ago, in the weeks surrounding Halloween,

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the sun sent us some tricks and treats of

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its own.  The tricks were a series of some of

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the most powerful solar storms ever measured,

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storms that disrupted power grids, communication lines and satellites.

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But the treats were some extraordinary

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auroras, seen as far south as Florida and Texas.

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Holly Gilbert:  The effects of these storms on

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the Earth were ghoulish enough that we had to

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re-route aircraft, it affected satellite

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systems and communications, and it also caused a power

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outage in Sweden for about an hour.

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Generally the public was very excited to see the

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ghostly aurora that were ignited in the night sky.

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The aurora are normally limited to the higher latitudes,

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so these storms were so powerful they created aurora

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that could be seen as far south as Florida. So you can imagine

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seeing the ghostly figures haunting the night sky.

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In all, nearly 17 major

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flares erupted on the Sun during those two weeks in

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2003, the result of energy building

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up in the Sun's magnetic field lines until they became

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strained enough to suddenly snap like an overstretched rubber

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band. The results were coronal mass

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ejections, the largest explosions in the solar system,

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able to launch up to 10 billion tons of electrified

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gas into space, and cause some of the ghoulish

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effects we felt here on Earth.

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These storms were also eerie because they came at such a surprising time.

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Gilbert: These storms were spooky because of the timing of which they occurred.

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That is to say that it did not occur in a stage where most of the activity occurs.

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In fact it occurred about 3 and a half years after solar maximum occurred, so it was

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spooky in that respect. And it was also spooky in the intensity

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of the storms. These were some of the largest storms ever observed.

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So can we expect to see any ghostly-looking auroras in this night sky

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this Halloween?    Gilbert:  I don’t thing we’re going to see a repeat this Halloween

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on the 5 year anniversary because we’re at a time when there are very little active regions

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on the sun. However, we're going to be ascending to greater period

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of solar activity. We may see some large storms in the next

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few years.  Still think the Sun isn’t so scary?

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Hopefully this spooky tale will make you think again.