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a taste of solar maximum presented by

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science at NASA experts say solar max is

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due in the year 2013 when it arrives the

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peak of the 11-year sunspot cycle will

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bring more solar flares more coronal

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mass ejections more geomagnetic storms

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and more Aurora's than we have

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experienced in quite some time on the

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weekend of July fourteenth 2012 sky

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watchers around the world got a taste of

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things to come it was mid Saturday in

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North America when a coronal mass

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ejection or CME crashed into Earth's

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magnetic field and triggered the most

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sustained display of Aurora's in years

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for more than 36 hours magnetic storms

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circled Earth's poles Northern Lights

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spilled across the Canadian border into

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the United States as far south as

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California Colorado Kansas and Arkansas

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in the southern hemisphere skies turned

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red / Tasmania and New Zealand while the

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Aurora Australis pirouetted around the

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South Pole the source of the CM e was

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giant sunspot AR 15 20 a seething nest

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of tangled magnetism more than 15 times

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wider than earth itself on July twelfth

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the sunspots magnetic field erupted

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producing an x-class solar flare and

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hurling a billion tons of electrified

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plasma toward our planet NASA's twin

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stereo probes and the European Space

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Agency's Solar and Heliospheric

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Observatory monitored the CME as it

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billowed away from the Sun using those

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data analysts at NOAA and NASA

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successfully predicted the clouds

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arrival time it would take almost two

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full days for the CM e to cross the 93

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million miles and Sun the cme's impact

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sharply compressed Earth's magnetosphere

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briefly exposing geosynchronous

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satellites to solar wind plasma

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the shaking of Earth's magnetic field

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caused compass needles to swing just a

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little bit and prompted electrical

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currents to flow through the soil at

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high latitudes fortunately the strike

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did no harm satellite survived and power

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grids stayed online next came the light

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show as the cme's wake washed across

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earth the polar regions of our planet

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lit up like a Christmas tree red green

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blue and purple Aurora's kept both ends

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of the planet glowing dancing and

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ultimately spreading to places where

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Aurora's are seldom seen in Arkansas for

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instance there was a faint glow off and

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on for most of the night reports Brad M

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finger from a little town called Ozark

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around 3am there was an outburst of red

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and purple plainly visible to the naked

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eye in Pawnee grasslands Colorado

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photographer Robert Arn saw the northern

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lights for the first time ever as soon

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as I stepped out of the car the sky

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looked like it was on fire then the moon

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venus and jupiter rose together in the

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east to see the conjunction and the

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Aurora's side by side was incredible

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meanwhile at the other end of the planet

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Aurora's were going crazy over the South

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Pole reports robert schwartz at the

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amundsen-scott south pole research

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station we enjoyed the show under

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crystal clear skies with an air

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temperature of minus 105 degrees

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fahrenheit in ashland wisconsin on the

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other hand john Welling watched the show

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in his shirtsleeves tonight it was

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absolutely the best with a comfortable

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temperature of 78 degrees Fahrenheit and

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northern lights dancing over head the X

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flare definitely lived up to the hype

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from one end of the planet to the other

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spending more than 90 degrees of

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combined north south latitude 183

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degrees of temperature and 360 degrees

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of longitude this was truly a global

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space weather event and it was just a

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taste of things to come the sun-earth

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connection is heating up

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for more news about the sun-earth