Super Solar Filament. What's the risk ?.

This is pretty cool and quite remarkable. If and when it lets go what are the potential impacts for us ?



Spaceweather

It is, arguably, the second biggest thing in the solar system. A filament of magnetism almost 1,000,000 km long is stretching across the face of the sun. Only the sun itself is bigger.

This is a solar filament, a tendril of plasma held suspended above the surface of the sun by magnetic forces. Filaments appear on the sun all the time, but this one is unusually large, 5 to 10 times longer than ordinary filaments. If it becomes unstable and erupts, it could hurl parts of itself into space. Pieces of the filament falling back to the solar surface would explode upon impact, sparking a Hyder flare.

And this is what smaller filaments look like when they let go.



Anyway, I reckon this is quite extraordinary and if there's any experts with more information, please feel free to wade in.

Kind Regards
Myselfaswell

a reply to: myselfaswell

Imagine if the great big enemy humanity will have to unite and go against is actually the sun? Instead of putting resources towards war and division we have to retool our entire infrastructure so the sun never scorches us ever again.

Or not lol. I've still never seen anything like that, S + F

a reply to: Yeahkeepwatchingme

That is a rather excellent question, and probably thread worthy. Just exactly how would one go about re-tooling our entire infrastructure in defense against a much more aggressive sun?.

Kind Regards
Myselfaswell

a reply to: myselfaswell

Maybe creating backups/redundancies so if the primary systems get fried we have something to work with. I can imagine it would cost billions (maybe a trillion or so once it's all over?) and in order to implement a working solution on a large scale maybe a few years..

Phagggeee where are you??? Phage is a genious on this subject looks cool good find s&f

a reply to: Yeahkeepwatchingme

Or perhaps technology that is organically based.

Organic Comupting

Researchers from Japan and the Michigan Technological University have succeeded in building a molecular computer that, more than any previous project of its kind, can replicate the inner mechanisms of the human brain, repairing itself and mimicking the massive parallelism that allows our brains to process information like no silicon-based computer can.

I'm far from being an expert, but that might work. Organic material seems less affected by higher energy levels, but that's not to suggest it's impervious.

Kind Regards
Myselfaswell

a reply to: myselfaswell

It's not really any different to a normal solar flare, in terms of risk to us.

We could see a geomagnetic storm from it

originally posted by: myselfaswell
a reply to: Yeahkeepwatchingme

That is a rather excellent question, and probably thread worthy. Just exactly how would one go about re-tooling our entire infrastructure in defense against a much more aggressive sun?.

Kind Regards
Myselfaswell

It probably will be an issue at some very distant stage as the Sun very gradually dies. In the intermediate, our variable Sun is going to throw up surprises from time to time. You see those filaments often enough, and it seems that most, or most part of them get pulled back into the Sun, but I don't think there is any definitive measure of the behaviour.
To add, ATF1886 Yes, Phage is brilliant at that sort of thing.

a reply to: Chadwickus

It's not really any different to a normal solar flare, in terms of risk to us.

Pardon my ignorance, but does that mean "just normal" or "just normal but potentially 5-10 times bigger", with respect to any resultant CME.

Kind Regards
Myselfaswell

a reply to: myselfaswell

Well, filaments which destabilise can flare. Solar flares can be caused by CME, filaments destabilising, and any other event on the sun which causes a highly concentrated burst of high energy particles to be thrown off from the sun.

Interestingly, a filament is basically the same thing as a prominence. The only difference is, that a filament is called a prominence when it is visible at the edge of the sun, when thought of as a disk rather than a sphere. So which is which depends largely on ones point of view at the time. A rather intriguing detail of the difference, is that when one looks at a filament, against the backdrop of the suns nuclear fury, it appears dark, because the gas of which it is made is much cooler than the surrounding material. When viewed at the edge of the disk of the sun however, prominences appear to rise from its edge, in bright bulges. Despite this they are the same exact events!

The various satellites and apparatus pointed toward the sun over the last decade, have provided us with some stunning, absolutely brilliant images and videos, which show these things from various angles, meaning that scientists can see the effect of a destabilising filament from both the Earth facing side of the sun, and the opposing side, which provides them with an opportunity to make better measurements of both their output in terms of flare activity, and the effect they may have on the surface of the sun.

Filaments do not always destabilise, instead they sink back into the whirling chaos below. It is only when a filament destabilises, that it poses a threat of throwing off some sort of flare activity, so that's a plus. That said, I have no idea as to how the destabilisation of a filament of this size would compare to a CME in terms of the amount of energetic material thrown off. That is a question for those better informed than myself!

That's just a serpent that will someday wrap around the earth and form a ring. Wouldn't it be neat to experience something like that?

a reply to: myselfaswell

The question is much the same as asking how big a CME will be based on a sunspot.

You can make an educated guess, but won't know until it happens.

Looking back at other hyder flare events may give you an indication of what to expect.

a reply to: Chadwickus

I haven't found a great deal about hyder flare CMEs, they do happen but it seems they are somewhat of a rare event.

Anyway, I did find this gem of a video that I've never seen before.



The video compares a rather "pedestrian" x-3 against the Carrington event with respect to effects on our magnetoshpere. As can be seen in the modelling simulation, Carrington event bad, very bad.

Kind Regards
Myselfaswell

a reply to: Chadwickus

A Hyder flare is simply a flash of electromagnetic radiation. It's similar to the more usual Solar flares in that regard. The difference being that they are caused by collapsing filaments rather than the magnetic "short circuits" which produce the more common sort within active regions.

Not a lot of risk involved with a filament collapse.