Posts by KatelynOster:

    When the Rivers Run Red …

    September 12th, 2012

    By Katelyn Oster.

    Countless people are left puzzled and shocked this week because of the mysterious behavior of China’s Yangtze River. The river suddenly turned red for no apparent reason last Thursday, reported to appear the color of “tomato juice” by International Business Times. While the cause of this sudden transformation is being investigated, people are forming their own conclusions based upon the frequency of the rivers and lakes all around the globe facing this same phenomenon.

    Just yesterday, Canada’s Montague River also turned a shade of red. Earlier this year, it was the Beirut River that famously suffered from the same affliction. Residents, curious to find out what the cause was for this event, are looking to a variety of options that could be responsible. Some point to the recently spiked activity of solar flares, some point to industrial pollutants, some to the potentiality of a “red tide” and others claim that it is all part of a biblical prophecy to mark the end times.

    According to a LiveScience interview, the “red tide” can nearly be ruled out since the algae that creates the tide is normally part of a “marine group” and not of a “freshwater group”. According to Emily Stanley, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin, the likelihood of this happening in Chongqing is “highly unlikely”.

    The most commonly held assumption is that some sort of industrial pollutant caused the color change, as evidenced by the experiments performed in the Blackstone River two years ago. The Blackstone River was a testing ground for the U.S. Geological Survey in 2009 for rhodamine WT, a dye that could potentially assist in an understanding of “river flow, water quality, and the movement of contaminants”. When the tests were being performed back then, the agency reassured residents that the dye was not harmful to lifeforms.

    Until further research is officially released, there is no definitive answer to the mystery of the Yangtze River’s color change. For now, however, people are left confused about the safety of the water and are awaiting scientific results.

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    The Last Blue Moon Until 2015: Appearing Friday

    August 29th, 2012

    By Katelyn Oster.

    Have you ever heard that phrase “once in a blue moon” and wondered when that blue moon would be coming around? You’re in luck! This lunar rarity will be shining bright in the night sky this Friday, August 31st, 2012 for the last time until mid-year 2015.

    These glowing astronomical wonders are rare because of the extraordinary appearance of two full moons in one month.

    Why is it that this phenomenon occurs? The answer lies in the nature of the Gregorian solar calendar. While 365 days are normally observed each year, the calendar actually accounts for 365.2425 days. That precisely equals 365 days, 5 hours, 49 minutes and 12 seconds. This means that each year there is technically a “surplus” of “time”. Those extra hours, minutes, and seconds add up, causing phenomenal astronomical events to occur seemingly out of the “blue”.

    Since the moon isn’t physically tinted differently than normal, the origin of it’s name seems puzzling. It is called a “blue” moon because, traditionally, each full moon was named something different. When a random full moon arose out of seemingly nowhere, it was automatically given the name of an outcast moon, one that came without warning. This was done so that the seasonal moons could be accurately named and predicted.

    So whether you wish to see this moon because of haunting superstition or for scientific fascination, don’t miss out on its full glow this Friday at 13:58 Universal Time.

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    The Unexamined Cause for Massive Blackouts: Solar Flares and Outdated Power Grids

    August 6th, 2012

    By Katelyn Oster.

    This year’s active solar storms have come and gone without much public concern. Some solar observers, however, are looking to the sky for answers to problems on our home planet.

    Last week over 670 million people were without power all around India, spanning from its Northern tip to its Eastern edge. According to a New York Times article written a day after the event, this massive blackout “trapped coal miners, stranded train passengers, and caused huge traffic jams” in New Delhi. Apart from these locational inconveniences, the blackout also caused concerns over the city’s food and water supply.

    The official explanation for this sudden, devastating power failure was an overconsumption of power on behalf of the country’s system. Experts consider farmers the culprit for drawing too much water to cover their fields. This explanation simply doesn’t hold up on its own with the synchronicity of solar weather events impacting Earth at the same time as the blackouts.

    There is a looming possibility that the intensity of recent solar activity could have sparked the failure in addition to the fragility of the nation’s power grid.

    Just a few days before the massive blackout in India, an M6- class solar flare erupted on the sun, causing a coronal mass ejection to launch towards Earth’s magnetic field. This impact, estimated to hit on July 31st, could have caused an intense geomagnetic storm capable of disrupting India’s power system and creating the blackouts on August 1st.

    The sun is in “Solar Cycle 24”, deemed by NASA’s reports a “below-average” cycle, which is estimated to birth a mere 90 sunspots before 2013. Despite its classification seeming harmless, such cycles are known to yield surprisingly severe solar weather.

    If this solar event is related to the incident in India, what could that say about Earth’s future?

    In a 2009 article by NASA, the panel chairman of NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center noted that the “Carrington Event”, a well-known geomagnetic storm in the mid 1800’s, “electrified transmission cables, set fires in telegraph offices, and produced Northern Lights so bright that people could read newspapers by their … glow.”

    The NOAA predicts a cycle in 2013 that shares a similar resemblance to the one that held the “Carrington Event”. Instead of setting fire to telegraph offices, however, the consequences in modern times could be much more daunting to face. According to an article expounding upon a 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences, “if a storm similar to the storm of 1859 occurred today, it could cause $1 to 2 trillion in damages and require 4 to 10 years for complete recovery”.

    To download and read the National Academy of Sciences report (Severe Space Weather Events–Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts), click here.

    As evidenced by last week’s outages in India, many nations’ power grids are simply not capable of surviving an event of that scale. In that instance, it would be up to the people to sustain themselves and prepare for longer outages. In conjunction with the solar flares’ potential effect on power grids, last week’s events brought attention to the outdated grids that exist around the world, becoming a concern for many countries.

    Even the U.S. Department of Energy admits there are “many hazards associated with operating the 20th century grid in the 21st century” and that “the grid is struggling to keep up” with consumer demand.

    The combination of these faulty power grids with atypical space weather could result in a perspective-changing energetic event capable of limiting (or even crippling) national economies.

    To keep an eye on the sun’s activity, visit www.spaceweather.com.

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