Posted on 11/11/2011 12:35:03 PM PST by decimon
Given a legitimate need to protect Earth from the most intense forms of space weather – great bursts of electromagnetic energy and particles that can sometimes stream from the sun – some people worry that a gigantic "killer solar flare" could hurl enough energy to destroy Earth. Citing the accurate fact that solar activity is currently ramping up in its standard 11-year cycle, there are those who believe that 2012 could be coincident with such a flare.
But this same solar cycle has occurred over millennia. Anyone over the age of 11 has already lived through such a solar maximum with no harm. In addition, the next solar maximum is predicted to occur in late 2013 or early 2014, not 2012.
Most importantly, however, there simply isn't enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles to destroy Earth.
This is not to say that space weather can't affect our planet. The explosive heat of a solar flare can't make it all the way to our globe, but electromagnetic radiation and energetic particles certainly can. Solar flares can temporarily alter the upper atmosphere creating disruptions with signal transmission from, say, a GPS satellite to Earth causing it to be off by many yards. Another phenomenon produced by the sun could be even more disruptive. Known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), these solar explosions propel bursts of particles and electromagnetic fluctuations into Earth's atmosphere. Those fluctuations could induce electric fluctuations at ground level that could blow out transformers in power grids. The CME's particles can also collide with crucial electronics onboard a satellite and disrupt its systems.
In an increasingly technological world, where almost everyone relies on cell phones and GPS controls not just your in-car map system, but also airplane navigation and the extremely accurate clocks that govern financial transactions, space weather is a serious matter.
But it is a problem the same way hurricanes are a problem. One can protect oneself with advance information and proper precautions. During a hurricane watch, a homeowner can stay put . . . or he can seal up the house, turn off the electronics and get out of the way. Similarly, scientists at NASA and NOAA give warnings to electric companies, spacecraft operators, and airline pilots before a CME comes to Earth so that these groups can take proper precautions. Improving these predictive abilities the same way weather prediction has improved over the last few decades is one of the reasons NASA studies the sun and space weather. We can't ignore space weather, but we can take appropriate measures to protect ourselves.
And, even at their worst, the sun's flares are not physically capable of destroying Earth.
For more information concerning 2012, visit
› 2012: Beginning of the End or Why the World Won't End?
Killjoy ping.
We’ll always have Niburu.
Oh, great. Another crisis this admin won’t let go to waste.
True, but a CME could potentially do a heck of a lot more to an airplane’s electronics than the cell phones they make us turn off.
OK...but what happens when all the electrical power transformers are fried world wide....?
(hint...same result but slower....)
“there simply isn’t enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles”
Totally unscientific statement. Depends how that energy is used. There is “enough energy in the sun” to do just about anything, if used in the appropriate manner.
The Sun is a monumental problem and should be destroyed immediately! Then, we could et back to normal.
“inconstant Moon” by Larry Niven is a great tale about a killer flare. The protagonist survives but many do not.
I’m not sure why a killer flare is impossible, a huge fusion torch like our sun could not dose up Earth with 500 REMS or so? It’s really not that much energy.
Ron Paul says the moon doesn’t pose an imminent threat to us and any action on our part will lead to decades of future tension.
The last cycle took almost 15 years to complete, and will likely peak at some 50% fewer sunspots than were predicted just a couple of years ago. Also cycle 25, which should be making itself known at the poles, is nowhere to be seen.
Not sure what the range of "standard" is, but these do seem like some noteworthy items to gloss over.
He became aware of the effects of solar geomagnetic storms on terrestrial communications when a huge solar flare on August 4, 1972, knocked out long-distance telephone communication across Illinois. That event, in fact, caused AT&T to redesign its power system for transatlantic cables.
A similar flare on March 13, 1989, provoked geomagnetic storms that disrupted electric power transmission from the Hydro Québec generating station in Canada, blacking out most of the province and plunging 6 million people into darkness for 9 hours; aurora-induced power surges even melted power transformers in New Jersey.
In December 2005, X-rays from another solar storm disrupted satellite-to-ground communications and Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation signals for about 10 minutes. That may not sound like much, but as Lanzerotti noted, "I would not have wanted to be on a commercial airplane being guided in for a landing by GPS or on a ship being docked by GPS during that 10 minutes
While in the same breath....the Carrington event of 1859
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/23oct_superstorm/
She was that Star Trek babe, right?
If something like the Carrington Event (1859) happened today, we would be in a world of hurt. Telegraph operators reported that their telegraph units caught fire.
Such an event today would be like a worldwide EMP. Much of the world's power grid and electronic gear would get fried.
Hey, at least long range ham/amateur radio communications will be enhanced...skip talk. Could be useful if TSHTF in 2012.
That would be awesome.
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