The Royal Air Force has said none of its planes were responsible for what many have called a "sonic boom" over Grimsby.
As reported, the Grimsby Telegraph received many calls from residents who had heard what sounded like a large explosion at about 7pm on Wednesday.
Initial fears that there had been an explosion were quickly allayed and theories turned to the possibility of a sonic boom from a plane.
Initially, these suggestions appeared to be legitimate when it was revealed that the Ministry of Defence (MOD) is currently carrying out a low-flying operation named "Exercise Lightning Force" in the area.
However, when contacted by the Grimsby Telegraph, Squadron Leader Nikki Stacey, based at Headquarters Air Command, said the noise had not been caused by an RAF aircraft, adding there was "nothing reported" from any of the forces' "fast jet units". Gareth Stringer, deputy editor of Global Aviation Resource magazine, said: "A sonic boom occurs when an aeroplane breaks the sound barrier and the noise that you hear is the shockwave of area around the aircraft.
Fire in the Sky
A gang of heavily insulated scientists has wrapped up its Antarctic expedition, with its members thawing out from the experience, but pleased to have bagged more than 300 space rocks.
They are participants in the Antarctic Search for Meteorites program, or ANSMET for short. Since 1976, ANSMET researchers have been recovering thousands of meteorite specimens from the East Antarctic ice sheet. ANSMET is funded by the Office of Polar Programs of the National Science Foundation.
According to the ANSMET website, the specimens are currently the only reliable, continuous source of new, nonmicroscopic extraterrestrial material. Given that there are no active planetary sample-return missions coming or going at the moment, the retrieval of meteorites is the cheapest and only guaranteed way to recover new things from worlds beyond the Earth. [Photos: Asteroids in Deep Space ]
© ANSMET
Search for meteorites program places researchers on the ice to live in base camp conditions of wind and snow.
Search for meteorites program places researchers on the ice to live in base camp conditions of wind and snow.
According to the ANSMET website, the specimens are currently the only reliable, continuous source of new, nonmicroscopic extraterrestrial material. Given that there are no active planetary sample-return missions coming or going at the moment, the retrieval of meteorites is the cheapest and only guaranteed way to recover new things from worlds beyond the Earth. [Photos: Asteroids in Deep Space ]
© Agence France-Presse/Rune Stoltz Bertinussen
An Aurora borealis is pictured near the city of Tromsoe, northern Norway.
An Aurora borealis is pictured near the city of Tromsoe, northern Norway.
US carrier Delta Air Lines said it had adjusted flight routes for transpolar journeys between Asia and the United States to avoid problems caused by the radiation storm, a spokesman said.
NASA confirmed the coronal mass ejection (CME) began colliding with Earth's magnetic field around 10:00 AM (1500 GMT) Tuesday, adding that the storm was now being considered the largest since October 2003.
Radiation storms are not harmful to humans, on Earth at least, according to the US space agency. They can, however, affect satellite operations and short wave radio.
The storm's radiation, likely to continue bombarding Earth's atmosphere through Wednesday, and its possible disruption to satellite communications in the polar regions prompted the flight rerouting, airline officials said.
Atlanta-based Delta, the world's second largest airline, said "a handful" of routes had their journey adjusted "based on potential impact" of the solar storm on communications equipment, spokesman Anthony Black told AFP.
Kinston - We've received calls and Facebook messages about a loud "boom" heard shortly before noon in parts of Lenoir county, but so far officials say they aren't sure what caused the loud noise.
Some are speculating it was a sonic boom caused by a plane.
Several callers say it was so intense it shook the walls of local businesses.
According to reports, the loud noise was heard in various parts of Lenoir County including LaGrange and various parts of Kinston near Lenior Community College.
Local officials told "Nine on Your Side" they are unsure what caused the noise.
Some are speculating it was a sonic boom caused by a plane.
Several callers say it was so intense it shook the walls of local businesses.
According to reports, the loud noise was heard in various parts of Lenoir County including LaGrange and various parts of Kinston near Lenior Community College.
Local officials told "Nine on Your Side" they are unsure what caused the noise.
As expected, a CME hit Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 24th at approximately 1500 UT (10 am EST). Geomagnetic storms are likely in the hours ahead. If it's dark where you live, go outside and look for auroras.
In Lofoton, Norway, the CME's arrival produced a surge in ground currents outside the laboratory of Rob Stammes:
In Lofoton, Norway, the CME's arrival produced a surge in ground currents outside the laboratory of Rob Stammes:
© Rob Stammes
© NASA
A solar flare erupting on the Sun's northeastern hemisphere; taken Sunday night, Jan. 22, 2012.
A solar flare erupting on the Sun's northeastern hemisphere; taken Sunday night, Jan. 22, 2012.
The solar flare occurred at about 11 p.m. EST Sunday and will hit Earth with three different effects at three different times. The biggest issue is radiation, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado.
The radiation is mostly a concern for satellite disruptions and astronauts in space. It can cause communication problems for polar-traveling airplanes, said space weather center physicist Doug Biesecker.
Radiation from Sunday's flare arrived at Earth an hour later and will likely continue through Wednesday. Levels are considered strong but other storms have been more severe. There are two higher levels of radiation on NOAA's storm scale - severe and extreme - Biesecker said. Still, this storm is the strongest for radiation since May 2005.
The radiation - in the form of protons - came flying out of the sun at 93 million miles per hour.
© NASA/SDO and the AIA consortium. Edited by J. Major.
This SDO image shows an M9-class solar flare erupting on the Sun's northeastern hemisphere on Jan. 23, 2012, just 4 days after a previous strong CME that sparked aurora around the world on the 22nd.
This SDO image shows an M9-class solar flare erupting on the Sun's northeastern hemisphere on Jan. 23, 2012, just 4 days after a previous strong CME that sparked aurora around the world on the 22nd.
A powerful solar eruption is expected to blast a stream of charged particles toward Earth tomorrow (Jan. 24), as the strongest radiation storm since 2005 rages on the sun.
Early this morning (0359 GMT Jan. 23, which corresponds to late Sunday, Jan. 22 at 10:59 p.m. EST), NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory caught an extreme ultraviolet flash from a huge eruption on the sun, according to the skywatching website Spaceweather.com.
The solar flare spewed from sunspot 1402, a region of the sun that has become increasingly active lately. Several NASA satellites, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory, the Solar Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), and the Stereo spacecraft observed the massive sun storm.
A barrage of charged particles triggered by this morning's solar flare is expected to hit Earth tomorrow at around 9 a.m. EST (1400 GMT), according to experts at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
According to NOAA, this is the strongest solar radiation storm since May 2005, and as a precaution, polar flights on Earth are expected to be re-routed within the next few hours, Kathy Sullivan, deputy administrator of NOAA, said today at the 92nd annual American Meteorological Society meeting in New Orleans, La.
This morning, Jan. 23rd around 0359 UT, big sunspot 1402 erupted, producing a long-duration M9-class solar flare. The explosion's M9-ranking puts it on the threshold of being an X-flare, the most powerful kind. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captured the flare's extreme ultraviolet flash:
The Solar and Heliosphere Observatory (SOHO) and the STEREO-Behind spacecraft have both detected a CME rapidly emerging from the blast site. Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab estimate a velocity of 2200 km. There is little doubt that the cloud is heading in the general direction of Earth. A preliminary inspection of SOHO/STEREO imagery suggests that the CME will deliver a strong glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field on Jan. 24-25 as it sails mostly north of our planet. Stay tuned for updates.
© SpaceWeather
© NASA/JPL/JHUAPL
The effort is being led from the German space agency's (DLR) Institute of Planetary Research in Berlin, and had its kick-off meeting this week.
It will draw on expertise from across Europe, Russia and the US.
It's a major EU-funded initiative that will pull together all the latest science, initiate a fair few laboratory experiments and new modelling work, and then try to come to some definitive positions.
Industrial partners, which include the German, British and French divisions of the big Astrium space company, will consider the engineering architecture required to deflect one of these bodies out of our path.
Should we kick it, try to tug it, or even blast it off its trajectory?
