Sun Controls Megaquakes, West Coast Risk | S0 News May.22.2026

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:13]Good morning, folks. Welcome observers.

[00:00:15]It is Friday, May 22nd, 2026, and today we've got some space weather to break down and to monitor. We've got an interesting satellite mission from NASA and two earthquake papers that are right up our alley. Let's get started with our star. in the last 24 hours were very quiet. Slight murmurss in the coronal upper bands, hints of eruptive behavior to the left behind the limb, but not much in the way of eruptive activity.

[00:00:37]Largest event of the day actually just happened. An M2 solar flare erupted, but did so out of harm's way. Goes X-ray flux jumped up right as I was putting the show together here, peaks, and is headed back down now. Luckily, it was over at the limb bright spot on the right there. and it contained only the most minor of visible plasma ejections.

[00:00:59]The sunspot situation is unchanged and so is our outlook. Still waiting for those big sunspots to return to view.

[00:01:06]These ones here may be morphing and shifting but they aren't producing any flares. Earth-facing quiet in effect. It seems about the most interesting thing happening around our star was this sundiving comet racing in on the CRO's line. Goodbye little dude. Up first in the science today is a bit of fun. New mission is mapping faint light emissions from abandoned mines to spot signals of potential water contamination by chemical release. They estimate that a considerable fraction of the slow leech and pollution of water and ground systems is unknown, unttracked. But by sensing how the different light reactions indicate what's happening chemically, they can sniff out nearly all of those elusive ones. Seattle. I have been giving you guys pats on the back for smoking the rest of the country in the state of the earth tour ticket sales, but you know, eventually you cannot stay there. Not only is Cascadia a virtual certainty in the disaster cycle at some point, but the Seattle fault itself is bad, much worse than they thought. When it goes, the city comes down. Top science today comes as yet another recent paper on space weather and earthquakes. This time, we're seeing absolute magnitude tied to geomagnetic activity. I love this. Most papers are discussing a correlation with frequency. My paper with NASA's Dr. U Yen and Professor Hollowman is one of a small few that looked at the bigger quakes only. This one here today is doing so by default. The sun is able to release stored energy in the ground electromagnetically.

[00:02:36]Folks, the next major event at Observer Ranch is the climate event with Chris Marts. He is the best thing to come out of meteorology in years. at his request.

[00:02:45]This is the most affordable of all of our science events this year. And if you are looking for your prepper princess or post-apocalyptic warlord, just 3 days later, the third observer speed dating event takes place. We are very good at these, by the way. And when the person across from you is an observer, what to say is never the problem. By the way, I lost the vote 3 to one. Cat, Mike, and Barb outvoted me. I think a good sweatshirt that's 100% cotton is 45 or 50 bucks these days. They wouldn't let me do that for the pre-orders as summer approaches knowing that you're buying them for next winter. Link to pre-order below. All details found on that page.

[00:03:23]We appreciate you. Thanks for watching.

[00:03:26]We'll do this all again tomorrow right here, but right now at 6:00 a.m. in the new Valley of the Sun.

[00:03:34]Eyes open. No fear. Be safe everyone.