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Among the first to feel the effects of the flare's fury was the orbiting Solar Max. As the radiation saturated Solar Max's instruments, a NASA spokesman reported, "the satellite was stunned for a minute and then recovered." Heated by the incoming blast of radiation, the upper fringe of the atmosphere expanded farther into space. Low-orbiting satellites, encountering that fringe and running into increasing drag, slowed and dropped into still lower orbits. A secret Defense Department satellite began a premature and fatal tumble, and the tracking system that keeps exact tabs on some 19,000 objects in earth orbit briefly lost track of 11,000 of them. Solar Max descended by as much as half a mile in a single day, almost certainly hastening its demise.
On the earth, the flare's effects were equally disruptive. Shortwave transmissions were interrupted, some for as long as 24 hours, and satellite communication and a Coast Guard loran navigation system were temporarily overwhelmed. Powerful transient magnetic fields, generated in the upper atmosphere by the flare, induced electrical currents in transmission lines and wiring, and mystified homeowners reported automatic garage doors opening and closing on their own. A surge of flare-induced current was blamed by Hydro- Quebec officials for shutting down the power company's system and blacking out parts of Montreal and the province of Quebec for as long as nine hours. These startling phenomena were shrugged off by Sacramento Peak's Neidig. "A really big flare," he says, "can produce enough energy to supply a major city with electricity for 200 million years."
By far the most dramatic manifestation of the solar flare was the two-night, spectacular display of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, that awed Paul Avellar and millions of others. Arriving high-energy electrons, deflected by the earth's magnetic field, spilled into the upper atmosphere near the north and south polar regions, which are unprotected by magnetic-field lines. Acting much as does the electrical current in a neon sign, the electrons banged into oxygen atoms, causing them to emit red and green light.
Ordinarily far less intense and visible only in arctic climes, the glowing, flickering aurora was seen as far south as Brownsville, Texas, and Key West, Fla. Alarmed Floridians, unfamiliar with the lights and fearing that a catastrophe had occurred somewhere in the north, flooded police switchboards with calls.
The two great flares of March were not isolated events. Nine other major outbursts and hundreds of smaller ones were recorded during the two weeks it took for the sunspot region to rotate out of view. In the months since, as the sun moves erratically toward its maximum, several flares have been observed every day.