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EricFromOuterSpace OP t1_j6n9oq9 wrote

Reply to comment by wanderlustcub in A spaceflight disaster was narrowly avoided in 1972. A series of intense solar flares exploded in August, just months before the launch of Apollo 17. Any astronauts on the moon at that time would have died from radiation. As NASA's new lunar missions progress, the threat of radiation still looms. by EricFromOuterSpace

I read it as narrow, like, in cosmic time.

If you're talking about getting unlucky with the sun, 4 months is pretty narrow.

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wanderlustcub t1_j6nbmi5 wrote

But we are talking space weather, which is much more dynamic and fluid. That timescale is more on the par of days. Sometimes hours. That’s why I felt it was a strange phrase to use.

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EricFromOuterSpace OP t1_j6nc9hk wrote

Gotcha — yea you are probably right that space weather is chaotic and something is happening all the time, but this one seems to have been particularly intense:

A series of intense solar flares exploded intermittently for more than a week. A solar flare is an outburst of charged particles from the Sun’s turbulent surface. There are five classes: A, B, C, M, and X, ranging in size from the smallest to the most dangerous. The intense solar storm of 1972, which was an X-class flare, originated from a sunspot named MR 11976.

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