The Sun ERUCTATES huge ball of GAS at 4 MILLION MPH NASA has published images and a video of a massive solar flare that the sun belched forth at 4.4 million miles per hour, which lasted from 0039 until 0103 UTC on Tuesday morning, and reached its peak at 0049. Different wavelengths reveal different details of the X-class solar flare (click to enlarge) The images were …
"X2 flare being twice as intense as an X1, and so on". That really tells us nothing.
is X a linear scale? X4 is twice as big as X2 and 4 times as big as X1.
or, like many things such as earthquakes, is X exponential. ie. each step in X being double. ie. X2 is double X1, X3 is double X2, so X4 would be 8 times as big as X1.
Goggles: you need them to look at the sun!
The scale measures power per unit area of solar X-rays, measured by earth satellites. It starts at A1, which is 10^-8 W/m^2, and increases linearly up to A9 (9x10^-8). Then instead of A10 for we have B1 (10^-7), and similarly up to B9, then C1 (10^-6) up to C9, then M1 (10^-5) up to M9, and then X1 (10^-4). There's no scale beyond X, so after X9 we just continue with X10.
An X4.9 flare is large but not exceptional. The largest recorded was at least X28 (during the previous solar maximum, in 2003), but it went off the scale of the recording instruments. The Carrington event of 1859 may have been even bigger. The current solar maximum is a weak one and we haven't had anything bigger than X7.
Look at http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/rt_plots/xray_1m.html for a graph labelled in both A/B/C/M/X scales and plain W/m^2.
" It starts at A1, which is 10^-8 W/m^2, and increases linearly up to A9 (9x10^-8)."
Given that sound pressure is measured in W/m^2, we can presumably use a similar method for measuring human belches (audible volume, obviously not quality), and the X scale looks remarkably well placed for this, as 10^-4 W/m^2 is about the same as a noisy radio or raised voices.
Mrs Ledswinger (who is naturally blessed in the belching department) can let rip with noise levels akin to shouting, so I'm guessing that she's achieving X5, possibly pushing to an X6 when suitably fuelled. Can other commentards (or their spouses) better that?
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