Solar flares – those monstrous flames that shoot out from the sun and cause the electrics on Earth to go haywire – are at their most active in years.
In fact, the largest in five years was graphically captured on Tuesday by Nasa. It is the start of an 11-week cycle that ends in October.
According to Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, the flares caused by solar storms have seldom been as strong and could get stronger. Even the end-of-the-worlders are using them as part of their Armageddon armoury.
To understand the real thing – sans Star Wars and oddballs – there’s no better or more heart-stopping place to be than at the top of the towering Pyrenees on a peak that resembles the tip of a sharpened pencil.
It is there, perched like a white fairy tale kingdom, that a collection of telescopes housed in domed observatories, watch the sun and the planets – so closely you feel like you could almost touch the surface of bodies light years away.
The facility also has a boutique hotel where you can observe the stars firsthand.
However, you first need to get to this B&B in the sky. If you don’t like heights and are scared at the thought of going to the top of Moses Mabhida Stadium, forget it.
Pic du Midi is 2 877m above sea level and is on one of the highest peaks in the range. From La Mongie, a ski resort on the Spanish French border, a small cable car takes you swiftly up and up. The villages below soon look like scatterings of gravel, their roads like fine strands of hair.
No sooner have you reached the docking station than you are guided around a rocky precipice to another cable car. This one is terrifying, spanning a yawning canyon between two impossible peaks.
High winds – recorded at up to 180mph (288km/h) – can cut off the facility for days, but the weather on the first day was reasonably calm.
Through the observation glass, you could see mysterious domes and towers flitting in and out of wispy white clouds, becoming ever closer. This was surely James Bond territory. It would be easy to imagine him leaping out from this bleak and beautiful place, clinging to the platforms that hang so precariously in thin air.
On a more practical note, you can’t help wondering how on earth anyone climbed to those heights and then carted up all the equipment and building material.
As one of the guides pointed out: “These early astronomers were like mad men. They were passionate about the stars. This was the closest they could get to the sun and the heavens.”
To French scientists like Roland Thierry, who spend their working life on this Pyrrenean cliff face, the sun is the mysterious energy giver that possibly holds some of the key solutions to the energy crisis on Earth.
“We are learning more and more about the sun’s magnetic fields and how these large fiery energy releases reach Earth and the effects they have,” he says.
For that, the scientists working in this giant watchtower, have to thank pioneer astronomer Bernard Lyot, who in the 19th century developed the world’s first coronograph to monitor the sun’s rim, and lumbered up the icy slopes with his newfound invention.
The Lyot coronograph used a series of plates, which acted like an eclipse, blotting out the fiery centrepiece and only exposing the rim. It enabled scientists for the first time to study the sun for greater lengths of time without damaging their sight and gave the clearest indication of solar flares.
It is through this technology that solar storms are today made visible.
As we watched in real time, plumes of curling molten matter appeared to leap from the sun’s surface, dipping back in a great arc, over and over again.
The double storey telescope on the Pic du Midi is permanently focused at the sun through a hole in the dome. Beneath it, scientists sit at a bank of monitoring screens recording every solar burp and flare – knowledge that they then share with the rest of the scientific community.
You might ask why it is so important to understand the geography and geometry of the sun.
Scientists like Thierry will tell you that understanding the sun’s magnetic fields and the active plasma halo that hovers above the flares and leave the sun at the speed of light is critical not only for predicting electrical disturbances in the earth’s atmosphere but also to determine the future of space exploration.
For example, what sort of radiation shields will astronauts require to travel further into outer space is one question they need to know. How will the sun’s radiation affect their bodies? When you realise that these large energy releases account for a sixth of the total energy output of the sun every second, you see their point.
Another point is that the sun’s energy is a potential source of natural energy for the earth.
High in the heavens, the folks on Pic du Midi only speak French, which can be a problem when it comes to the astronomy lectures.
I had my book of useful phrases with me, but the only page I could get to in time was one which asked if I was a landscape gardener.
The lectures all come with great videos, so improvisation isn’t that difficult.
Outside, about midnight, the air is so clear that you can see the lights of Barcelona and Biarritz from this mountain eyrie. But not for long. The following morning our retreat was engulfed in a raging blizzard, snow icicles and fierce winds.
We had to get off the peak with a howling gale blowing.
The cable car twisted and tossed back and forth as it crossed the canyon.
Exhilarating, frightening, heart in your mouth – yes, all of that, but for a night with the stars, I’d happily go again, maybe to watch the progress of Nasa’s mission to Jupiter. - Sunday Tribune