Three scientists of Potchefstroom observed a rare solar flare during a training project. André Benadie, Zinho Njovane en Niel Malan had installed a instrument for training purposes when the observation was made.
Njovane departs in December for Antarctica, where he will spend the year 2001 as member of the South African National Antarctic Expedition (SANAE). As part of his training programme, Benadie, a programme manager, and Malan, a returning expedition member, assisted him in the installation of an extremely sensitive radio receiver. This kind of receiver records interesting events of absorption of cosmic radio waves at SANAE. These absorptions of radio waves occur frequently in the Antarctic ionosphere. Around the latitude of South Africa we have not yet observed interesting absorption of radio waves. But not this time. An hour or two after the receiver was switched on, there was a strong absorption, followed by a strong increase in radio-intensity.
We could not explain this, until we saw on the internet website www.spaceweather.com that there had been a solar flare. It was an enormous explosion from the surface of the sun, that ejected enormous amounts of matter and radiation into space. The X-rays from the solar flare reached the ionosphere first, and caused increased ionisation. This led to the observation of increased cosmic radio wave absorption. After ten minutes the radio waves emitted by the solar flare was received, which lead to the increased intensity of the radio receiver. For a period of three hours, the receiver was inundated with radio waves emitted by the sun, after which matters improved, and the recording followed it's normal trend."
Die aanvangstyd van hierdie gebeurtenis stem presies ooreen met die tyd wat NASA waargeneem het. Hierdie sonvlam het Woensdagoggend (12 Julie 2000) versteuring van radiokommunikasie oor die hele sonkant van die aarde veroorsaak.
The time of the event coincided exactly with the time NASA reported. This solar flare caused disruption of the radio communication on the whole sun-facing side of the earth Wednesday morning (12 July 2000)
Sonvlamme van hierdie energie (X-klas, wat x-strale uitstraal) kom enkele kere per jaar voor. Vanjaar is die maksimum van die son se aktiwiteit in sy 11- jaar siklus, en nog uitbarstings word voorspel.
Solar flares of this intensity (X-class, emitting x-rays), occurs once or twice a year. This year is the maximum year in the sun's 11-year cycle of activity, and more flares are expected.
Niel Malan
13 July 2000
Potchefstroom