What is this strange ring that has been developing on the Sun during 16-Oct?
Sunspot 1112, located in the southeast quadrant, has been the source of a giant filament that is currently stretching 400,000 km across the surface of the Sun.
However, today, there appears to be development of a enormous circular ring which looks to be linking with the huge magnetic filament of sunspot 1112. Most of today's various wavelength images of the Sun all show this feature over at the SDO (Solar Dynamics Observatory) - NASA website.
SpaceWeather.com today reports,
A vast filament of magnetism is cutting across the Sun's southern hemisphere today. A bright 'hot spot' just north of the filament's midpoint is UV radiation from sunspot 1112. The proximity is no coincidence; the filament appears to be rooted in the sunspot below. If sunspot flares, it could cause the entire structure to erupt. This active region merits watching...
What concerns me is that if indeed this is a huge magnetic filament nearly encircling the entire Sun, it is now currently directly facing the Earth. If sunspot 1112 does erupt, could the entire filament explode into a massive CME?
This particular phenomenon will be all over in a few days as it rotates around the Sun, but it serves to remind us that there are more and more events happening on the Sun as we transit into the next solar cycle maximum (peaking ~ 2012 into 2013).
CME is short for coronal mass ejection, a plasma made up of mostly electrons and protons. Basically, it is electromagnetic radiation that is ejected from active regions of the sun.
CMEs directed at Earth can interfere with radio communications, harm satellites, and even damage electrical power transmission circuits and infrastructure, potentially causing widespread power grid failure (only an extremely powerful CME could bring down the grid)
18-Oct-2010, A total of five “B” and “C” -class solar flares ignited today from sunspot region 1112, a high number but fairly small in intensity, not enough to ignite the filament.
Image of sunspot region 1112 during 18-Oct-2010 as it continues to rotate towards the south east rim of the sun.
19-Oct-2010, Partial Filament Eruption! (Not Earth directed...)
There have been 6 updates since the initial report. Link HERE to the original article and updates.
21-Oct-2010, Parting image of sunspot 1112... on the edge
Sunspots revolve around the surface of the sun from left to right. One revolution on the surface takes about 25 days (about 12 days on the Earth-facing side and about 12 days on the far side). So, if this particular sunspot 1112 survives the trip around the back side of the sun, we may see it again sometime around 2-Nov. That would be interesting...
26-Oct-2010, Have you seen sunspot 1117 lately? It has tripled in size during the last few days and is currently directly facing Earth.
http://beforeitsnews.com/story/218/366/Enormous_Ring_is_Developing_on_the_Su
Gas prices rise, breaking pre-election pattern
Gasoline prices haven't gotten much attention amid all the other bad economic news for Democrats heading into a final week of campaigning, but the price per gallon has climbed nearly 15 cents since Labor Day - a surprising jump, given that prices usually plummet before an election.
The cost of a gallon of gas has eclipsed the $3 mark in several parts of the country and clocks in nationally at $2.82, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). That's up from $2.68 on Sept. 6, and overall about $1 higher than the week of Jan. 26, 2009, when President Obama took office and the per-gallon price was $1.81.
Analysts say the surge in pump prices defies historical trends that call for a drop-off after the Labor Day holiday, which signals the end of the summer driving season and the traditional dip ahead of the November election season.
"We're puzzled by it," said John B. Townsend II, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic. "It's becoming increasingly expensive, and the great anomaly is that never happens before an election - prices always fall."
Nearly 70 percent of the cost of gas is determined by the global price for a barrel of crude oil, which currently is priced at $81, according to the EIA, and experts say there aren't many levers the president can pull to change prices dramatically in the short term.
Still, that doesn't mean it couldn't hurt politically - particularly on top of a 9.6 percent national unemployment rate that's a millstone around the neck of Democratic incumbents across the country.
Even though the issue has been out of the news, 56 percent of Americans say gas prices are "extremely important," according to a mid-October Associated Press-GfK poll that also found 29 percent rated prices at the pump as "moderately important" while 15 percent said they're of little or no importance. Americans are split in their assessment of how Mr. Obama is handling gas prices, with 49 percent approving and 49 percent disapproving of his performance, that same survey found. Among likely voters, just 46 percent approve of his track record on gas prices and 51 percent disapprove.
That could be because voters are used to pre-election price drops.
In 2008, prices plummeted nearly 80 cents between Labor Day and the week of Oct. 20, and in 2006, they fell by about 50 cents over the same period. In 2007 and 2009, by contrast, prices held about steady.
Mr. Obama, a vocal advocate for clean-energy technologies, has routinely stressed the need to transition the U.S. to a renewable-energy-use pattern as a means to improve the environment and also seize on new business opportunities in the burgeoning sector. He pushed for home weatherization credits in the stimulus package, and his Environmental Protection Agency has issued tighter fuel-economy standards, for example.
It's not clear if the Obama administration is considering any short-term fixes to rising gas prices. A spokeswoman for the Interior Department, which manages federal lands that would be leased for oil exploration, said that question isn't under the purview of the agency, and an Energy Department spokeswoman referred questions to the EPA, which did not return a message seeking comment.
Former President George W. Bush faced strong criticism and anemic approval ratings on his handling of the situation as gas prices eclipsed the $3 mark, reaching $4 in June 2008 before he and Congress lifted moratoriums on expanding offshore drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf. Supporters said lifting presidential and congressional moratoriums sent a signal to markets that in turn led to a sharp decline in prices.
In Mr. Obama's case, analysts said it's too soon to see any fallout from the BP oil spill or the new offshore drilling moratorium Mr. Obama imposed and then lifted. Instead, they attributed the rise in the cost of crude oil - and thus the price of gas - to strong demand from Chinese and other Asian economies that are showing stronger signs of rebounding from the recession than the U.S., where demand has fallen amid continued unemployment.
"The product impacts in the Gulf Coast from [the BP] incident are probably more in the five-to-ten-year time period," said Laurie Falter, an oil industry economist for the EIA, which collects and analyzes energy data. "If it's going to have an effect, it's going to be on investment going forward, and that's a slower time scale."
Free-market critics of Mr. Obama's energy policies say it's only a matter of time before consumers start to feel the pinch.
Daniel Kish, senior vice president for policy at the Institute for Energy Research, an industry-backed think tank, said Mr. Obama's decision in early April to open up some new areas for oil and gas exploration while canceling a slew of Alaskan lease sales will decrease domestic oil supplies and increase U.S. imports of oil.
"Their view is the best way to reduce consumption [of fossil fuels] is to make it more expensive, and then people will use alternatives, which they consider to be morally superior," Mr. Kish said. "The long-term consequences of this are going to be pretty significant. We're not going to stop using oil, we're just going to use less of our own oil and more of somebody else's."
Mr. Obama appears to have accepted the political reality that a "cap-and-trade" approach to global warming is not likely to happen, telling National Journal in an interview published Monday that he'll instead work on "more bite-sized pieces" like renewable energy standards.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/oct/25/gas-prices-rise-breaking-pattern/
To bad they had no way to protect themselves
3 men posing as ATF agents break into home, kill resident
Three men posing as agents of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives kicked their way into a home in Whistler, killed a 31-year-old man and held four others at gunpoint early Wednesday, Prichard police said.
The three men searched the home for money before leaving with a flat screen television, police said.
The victim was identified as Taurus Terrell Russell, according to Prichard spokeswoman Latoya Veal. She said Russell was shot once in the middle torso and was pronounced dead at the scene when rescue workers arrived about 3 a.m.
The incident took place on Stile Avenue, which runs west off St. Stephens Road two blocks north of Bear Fork Road, Veal said.
While Veal did not identify the address, neighbors said the incident took place at 1702 Stile Ave. They said police and an ambulance remained at the home until well past dawn.
The house is a single-story brick residence next to a driveway leading to Prichard Memorial Gardens, which is behind the home. Neighbors said Russell lived at the home with a woman and their two sons, the oldest of whom is 10.
According to Veal, a third child was also present when the men came into the home by kicking in a door.
Veal said none of the other four people in the home was physically harmed during the attack.
No arrests had been made as of Wednesday night. The three men were described as black, wearing all black clothing with their faces covered. No one saw a car leaving the scene, Veal said.
Without going into specifics, Veal did say police believe Russell’s attackers targeted him.
“We do not believe it is a random act,” she said.
A neighbor, Dwana Philon, said Russell was a friendly man who spent many of his days around the house and was seen regularly bringing his two sons home from school.
“He minded his business and his children,” she said.
“My son, who is 13, would play ball with his son,” Philon said, gesturing toward a basketball goal next to a gold Saturn parked in the driveway of Russell’s home.
Philon said she could not recall any serious incidents ever happening on Stile Avenue, a tree-lined street of mostly well-kept single-story homes, many with fenced-in yards and at least two with reinforced iron fencing and security gates.
“Our children double-check our doors every night before we go to bed,” she said. “But this is a family street, where people get together and talk on the porch.”
Veal agreed with Philon’s assessment of the neighborhood. “It is a rather quiet area. I cannot remember writing a release about a major crime in that neighborhood since I’ve been here,” she said.
Online court records show that Russell had some past scrapes with the law. According to the records, Russell was given six months probation after pleading guilty to second-degree marijuana possession after a 1998 arrest.
Two other drug-related offenses in 2004 were nol prossed, according to the records.
Veal said anyone who has information that can solve Russell’s killing should call Prichard police at 251-452-2211.
http://blog.al.com/live/2010/10/3_men_posing_as_atf_agents_bre.html
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