Posted on 09/15/2025 12:08:41 PM PDT by MtnClimber
Explanation: Can our Sun become dangerous? Yes, sometimes. Every few years our Sun ejects a scary-large bubble of hot gas into the Solar System. Every hundred years or so, when the timing, location, and magnetic field connections are just right, such a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) will hit the Earth. When this happens, the Earth not only experiences dramatic auroras, but its magnetic field gets quickly pushed back and compressed, which causes electric grids to surge. Some of these surges could be dangerous, affecting satellites and knocking out power grids -- which can take months to fix. Just such a storm -- called the Carrington Event -- occurred in 1859 and caused telegraph wires to spark. A similar CME passed near the Earth in 2012, and the featured animated video shows a computer model of what might have happened if it had been a direct hit. In this model, the Earth's magnetopause becomes so compressed that it went inside the orbit of geosynchronous communication satellites.
Today's image is another video at the link.
🪐 🌟 🌌 🍔
Today's image is another video at the link. A simulation video.
Would really NOT want to be on my way to Mars, or back, if one of those CMEs were shot in the ship’s direction.
Or ***on*** Mars. Remember, it has no magnetosphere. I’ve argued that one of the first things we’ll have to engineer when we start a colony will be a global magnetic field.
CMEs are composed primarily of protons and electrons. shielding against these particles is relatively “simple”. Multilayer metal and sometimes plastic shields are already used on spacecraft to protect sensitive electronics and astronauts.
That is cool!
Well, maybe not so cool if we’re in its path...
I see something like this and think thank God for the Earth’s magnetic field. We’d be a barren rock peppered with solar radiation without it.
Assuming you’re correct, then hopefully Boeing is not the sub responsible. Someone else can be the guinea pig for that flight when (not if) the CME happens along the way.
Or everyone lives underground and is only on the surface when they know that nothing is on the way.
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