Hacker News

Interestingly, there are about 100 events of this severity (G4) per cycle, and a single cycle lasts 11 years. This means there are about nine G4 events on average per year.

G4: " Induced pipeline currents affect preventive measures, HF radio propagation sporadic..."

G5: " Pipeline currents can reach hundreds of amps, HF (high frequency) radio propagation may be impossible in many areas for one to two days..."

The scale seems capped at a pretty low upper end? It feels like with all the mindbogglingly huge numbers usually involved when talking about space, there must be much, much worse events possible. Is it just that we don't know enough about them due to lack of experience that these aren't included?

We are at kp 8.67. The Carrington event was a kp 9

Looks like we get these for about 60 days for periods lasting 11 years.

> Biological: Unavoidable radiation hazard to astronauts on EVA; passengers and crew in high-flying aircraft at high latitudes may be exposed to radiation risk.

Anyone have a sense of magnitude for this advisory? How much more radiation should an airline passenger expect to receive during a G4 event than normal?

This was an S4 event, however.

so more of a 'bad storm here and there' level?

Last major storm I saw a significant number of single bit errors on my main server - never happened again, still using the same ram. So +1 anecdote

Yeah, there were auroras even as far south as Munich. Maybe not as intense, but it's the first aurora I ever saw, so I can't really judge...

Can confirm, I've seen pink/green glow over Berlin Sky (and pictures as well)

Just spend an hour outsite (Northern Germany, 01:00 MET). Unfortunately nothing to report, neither visual nor on camera. Maybe I just went to late and missed the show. I hope you habe more luck in Canada and the US!

I was just out at a dog park and saw nothing! We have clear skies. I can't believe I missed this.

Also seen in the Netherlands!

I tought I was seeing aurora borealis here at 4 am local time in the neighboring Grand Duchy of Luxemburg but it was just visual pollution due to lights from a city.

Could you see it from the inner city or only closer to the edges?

Oh really? Oh no I missed it! Is it going to happen again today?

Oh wow! https://www.foto-webcam.eu/webcam/ederplan/2026/01/20/0000

And up at the top right, left to "Latest" you can skip the time back and forth at 10 minute intervals. And then jump back like 10 images, what a beauty.

You can even see Starlink satellites https://www.foto-webcam.eu/webcam/ederplan/2026/01/19/1820

Those images around 19:00 are amazing. Thanks for sharing.

There are several apps that do a good job of alerting users. I use "Aurora Pro", which I prefer because it checks cloud cover and lets you set alert thresholds based on viewing probability.

Yes, sounds similar to a corrupted digital audio.

Replace hex with something more robust, at least with an actual metallic case.

Sounds like a dialup modem at about 3:30 :)

How sure are we the aliens aren't trying to dial in?

Not much? As I understand it, the major effects are in very long wires. Long wires can have get massive induced currents. But your homelab is unlikely to have long wires or very large loops. Ethernet wires are limited to 100m, and unshielded Ethernet is transformer-isolated to well over 1kV.

Shielded Ethernet could plausibly have issues with induced current on the shield. PoE might be less immune than ordinary Ethernet depending on what you’re doing with it, although well-behaved devices should be isolated. If you have a cable ISP, the cable shield might get toasty, although it’s likely to be grounded close enough to your house that any damage will be upstream.

Your 100% uptime will be tricky if your ISP goes down or you lose power.

AFAIK the risk is for long transmission lines. So your equipment at home is not really in any danger, as long as there is not a major surge on the transmission lines that makes it all the way to your house. If that happens, well, losing the home lab is probably no longer the issue.

Discontinue use of your telegraph system.

Perhaps though you will still be able to continue to send and receive messages despite having disconnected your power supply. [1]

[1] https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001679510&seq=40...

Make sure you have a surge protector or ups, in case it makes the power grid go funky. Which you should have anyway.

Also, it could be a convenient excuse to upgrade to fiber internet service if you haven't already. (Yes, excuse. Equipment should have more than good enough isolation to not care.)

Thank you, that's a really handy resource. Shared with my prepper friends.

https://emergencyprocedures.pjm.com/ep/pages/dashboard.jsf

Looking at the aspect ratio (and working in a bank) it's worse than that. That's a powerpoint slide.

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/communities/aurora-dashboard-exper... is better

Not like someone with poor vision is going to be able to see the aurora borealis that results

/s

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/subscription-services

One caveat is, that these events cannot be forecasted in the same way as weather on earth can. You usually only have a lead time of 15 - 45 minutes. See also https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/content/aurora-tutorial

On iOS there’s an app literally called “Aurora”.

It will notify you when you’re in an area with a high Kp (or above a Kp you specify).

I had registered for alerts on https://aurorasaurus.org/. But that alert was sent way too late for me (strongest lights were yesterday around 10-11 PM, and the notification was sent 2 AM today). But I was very lucky and just noticed the lights by accident on my way home.

I'll be attempting to get some photos/footage from Esperance.

Worth noting that Kp, which many talk about in discussions online, is more or less useless for anyone in Australia or the southern hemisphere. Lots of beginner Aurora chasers here get tripped up by that.

What is useful is KAus and the G index, KAus is shown on this page, so thats what i'll be tracking.

Are there any resources to track Aurora sightings or predicted sightings?

Is that tonight or last night?

A really bad event would be that long-distance transmission lines act like antennas and pick up millions of volts and blow up all the transformers.

I don't know how much you can plan for that other than "if it happens, try to get home", and then all the usual prepper stuff.

Pray for clear skies and go out and watch the beautiful aurora, silly!

Depending on the kids' ages, you can teach them quite a lot about the Earth's magnetic field and why the aurora concentrates at the poles, how the high-energy particles light up the sky (it's a lot like a neon light), and how the atmosphere shields us from any danger despite the spectacular show.

For a really bad event that managed to blow a lot of transformers (presumably due to grid operators not seeing it coming) ... well, take up farming.

Disconnect your telegraph batteries and run on aurora power only

Keep a couple days water and food on hand, go up to the pub, have a pint, and wait for this all to blow over.

Feel a bit sensationalistic. It happens, it's not rare, and we've always got on with life perfectly fine.

Buy a bit of extra food and water.

First rule of fight club...

This is definitely not a language I speak!

Flux and bZ!

Damn, I love finding some hyper-specific forums like this one.

Sooo much jargon.

But they should mostly be in the same part of the cycle rather than spread evenly.

It probably wouldn't make sense to calculate "average snow days per month" across an entire calendar year (in most places...), this is the same thing.

This is an S4. Last S4 event was in October 2003.

This is an S4, though.

Like 20-25 years rare according to some space weather youtuber.

That’s beautiful. But you get aurora even sans G4, true? Was this more intense and spectacular?

What spacecraft is your spacecraft?

Your URL is broken (for me)

Tonight I could see the colours without the camera but it definitely stands out more with the long exposure of the camera.

Even with lights in the direct line of the shot you you can get good results - presumably the phone is doing HDR to achieve this.

Local light pollution normally makes it hard to see with anything short of long exposure, but today it was naked eye visible and regular photos also captured it.

Aha, you probably witnessed a glimpse of Cittàgazze. You can capture it in photograms with a special emulsion: https://hisdarkmaterials.fandom.com/wiki/Aurora?file=Citt%C3...

Not sure how to deal with this kind of wildly unbalanced risk assessment

Unless you're in space, a large scale electrical operator, or relying on HF radio there isn't much reason to be interested other than the lights for a G4 (what this is currently classed as).

> while the site in question is "blaring klaxons!"

No, it isn't. It clearly says everything is under control but it would be good to keep an eye on it.

Blaring Klaxons! https://youtu.be/LX2KX0OaofI

Too much light pollution. You'd have to get well outside of the city. I looked at the weather last night and I think there might have been some trails on Tiger where you would've seen it with headlamp off.

In Seattle you can barely see planets.

Yes! Absolutely, but only if you want to drive it.

No need. Wrong type of solar event. You might be able to see auroras, though. I saw some a couple of hours ago.

No.

There's not that much they can do. It's often discussed that if the extreme August 1972 solar storm had overlapped with an Apollo mission (it didn't), it would have acutely sickened the astronauts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_1972_solar_storms#Human...

> "Had a mission been taking place during August, those inside the Apollo command module would have been shielded from 90% of the incoming radiation. However, this reduced dose could still have caused acute radiation sickness if the astronauts were located outside the protective magnetic field of Earth, which was the case for much of a lunar mission. An astronaut engaged in EVA in orbit or on a moonwalk could have experienced severe radiation poisoning, or even absorbed a potentially lethal dose."

The Orion capsule's contingency plan looks something like this:

> "To protect themselves, astronauts will position themselves in the central part of the crew module largely reserved for storing items they’ll need during flight and create a shelter using the stowage bags on board. The method protects the crew by increasing mass directly surrounding them, and therefore making a denser environment that solar particles would have to travel through, while not adding mass to the crew module itself."

https://www.nasa.gov/missions/artemis/orion/scientists-and-e...

The peak was originally supposed to be 6-7 hours from now... it's still showing KP 8 here though, so I'm not sure what's going on. It could get more intense.

Depends. If you're outside at night and tilt your head up, the Default Mode Network of your brain may be temporarily suppressed, while dopamine may increase.

Hokkaido got some back in November: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16155623