Sun Superflare ?

Interesting today in the Daily Galaxy..

"IT's a Frightening Possibility !" The Sun Could Generate a Devastating Superflare..

"We certainly did not expect to find superflare stars with magnetic fields as weak as the magnetic fields on the Sun. This opens the possibility that the Sun could generate a superflare - a very frightening thought" says Christoffer Karoff a leading expert in the internal structure of the Sun and its activity at Denmark's Aarhus University. "If an eruption of this size was to strike the Earth today, it would have devastating consequences. Not just for all electronic equipment on Earth, but also for our atmosphere and thus our planet's ability to support life."

The Earth is often struck by solar eruptions. These eruptions consist of energetic particles that are hurled away from the Sun into space, where those directed towards Earth encounter the magnetic field around our planet. When these eruptions interact with Earth's magnetic field they cause beautiful auroras. A poetic phenomenon that reminds us, that our closest star is an unpredictable neighbor. The largest observed eruption took place in September 1859, where gigantic amounts of hot plasma from our neighboring star struck the Earth.

On 1 September 1859, astronomers observed how one of the dark spots on the surface of the Sun suddenly lit up and shone brilliantly over the solar surface. This phenomenon had never been observed before and nobody knew what was to come. On the morning of September 2, the first particles from, what we now know was an enormous eruption on the Sun, reached the Earth. The 1859 solar storm is also known as the "Carrington Event". Auroras associated with this event could be seen as far south as Cuba and Hawaii, telegraph system worldwide went haywire, and ice core records from Greenland indicate that the Earth's protective ozone layer was damaged by the energetic particles from the solar storm. The cosmos, however, contains other stars and some of these regularly experience eruptions that can be up to 10.000 times larger than the Carrington event.

www.dailygalaxy.com... #more

The Daily Galaxy via Aarhus University

Well skywatcher44, if it does happen you can stand up and shout " I told you this would hap------------------------------

a reply to: imod02

Not sure anyone would be able to shout.. Underground Cities ( Need designing ) maybe in case of something like this or
a Nuclear free for all..

Im old enought to have lived through so much "doom doom doom doom I dont care much anymore

a reply to: skywatcher44

Actually, many of the oldest cities in the world are already, technically in possession of extensive underground segments. Between the sheer age of the settlement, and to a lesser extent the activities of the government during the Second World War, not to mention its underground train networks, London has a vast amount of space under it, which could be relatively quickly turned into a superbunker, in the event that it were required. Warning, lead time, working out how to know years in advance that something may be in the offing...thats the crucial part!

The earth and sun's relationship has existed far longer eons and eons, compared to the humans who think about their relationship.

I'm sure, in the duration of their galactic dance, they have seen every kind of experience with one another, as well as the other planets.

Earth is still here, and will be for more eons.

Can't say the same about humanity. Which, worrying about super flare should be the last threat on their minds, the first is themselves.

a reply to: skywatcher44

This would be like the 1859 Carrington Event where the telegraphs were all fried. I don't think anything else was "electric" back then. Were this to happen now, it would knock us back into the early 19th century, figuratively speaking. No cars, no electricity, no phones, no batteries, no solar grid, no electric grid, no generators etc... After the majority of life in the city dies from starvation, rebels killing people for food and water, and city slickers that couldn't win survival of the fittest, we'd all be living off the land and bartering for fruit, vegetables, meat, firearms, ammo, and anything else we found useful. No internet would be the best part of all of that.

I'm prepared for such an event.

a reply to: Elementalist

worrying about super flare should be the last threat on their minds,

au contrer, if something of equivalent energy as the Carrington Event were to happen today, we would likely be in a lot worse shape due to our dependence upon all things electronic.

Maybe the grid would withstand such an event if it were shut down in time, maybe it wouldn't. We really don't know.

Some estimates have suggested that the loss of multiple EHV transformers from a CME event could shut down portions of the grid for months. A similar study prepared in 2013 by Lloyd’s suggested damages could reach $1.2 trillion and outages could extend up to two years. Work by the Electric Power Research Institute, however, has suggested that temporary EHV transformers could be placed in a matter of days and kept in operation long enough to source permanent replacements.

Severe Solar Storm Could Shut Down U.S. Grid for Months, Study Says

It's not out of the realm of possibility.

What would happen to all of the nuclear power plants if they could not maintain cooling for the reactors or spent fuel pools?

Here's a hint:



Also think about all of the spent fuel that needs constant cooling otherwise it heats up and melts down.

Back up generators only run as long as they have fuel. How long will fuel deliveries continue if there's no power grid distributing electricity?


Here is the .pdf of the study mentioned in my linked article:

Linky (direct .pdf link)

So it shorts out our powergrid and communication grid for a couple of years. We will survive if we are prepared.

There will be a lot of chaos during that time and a lot of people will starve but most of us will survive after being under martial law for a year.

Russia could knock out our power grid too, that would be easy. Any country with a well placed nuke explosion could knock out our power. Even a comet or major asteroid exploding in our atmosphere could cause that.

Just think of all the new jobs that would be created,we would have to go back to doing things the way they were done 100+ years ago.people would have to leave the big cities to find work but there would plenty of jobs for everyone.
crops would have to be planted.tended and harvested by hand,that`s a lot of jobs right there.
horse and wagon to deliver food to the railways where steam engines would haul the food,that`s more jobs.
Horses will be in high demand, that`s more jobs for blacksmiths and ranchers.
sailing ships for commercial fishing and transporting things.
people survived without electricity for many years so i think we could survive without for a few years until they get everything back to normal. it`s not like we would have to learn how to live without electricity we already know how to by looking at our past history we would just have to do what they did.

a reply to: Tardacus

Many problems would be encountered that we have never encountered before. In the 1900's the population was around 76M. Everyone knew how to live without electricity. Now, at least in the US, there are 350-400M, the majority of which don't know how to live without it. It's completely new dynamics. The sheer volume of food which would need to be grown without modern technology would be almost impossible. And consider, people now live in places that were once mostly uninhabitable because of weather, terrain etc. that now are towns and cities. How would they survive? On top of that, we've depleted or poisoned water sources, created food seeds that are sterile, we're one major disaster away from a vast extermination.

originally posted by: jadedANDcynical
a reply to: Elementalist

worrying about super flare should be the last threat on their minds,

au contrer, if something of equivalent energy as the Carrington Event were to happen today, we would likely be in a lot worse shape due to our dependence upon all things electronic.

Maybe the grid would withstand such an event if it were shut down in time, maybe it wouldn't. We really don't know.

Some estimates have suggested that the loss of multiple EHV transformers from a CME event could shut down portions of the grid for months. A similar study prepared in 2013 by Lloyd’s suggested damages could reach $1.2 trillion and outages could extend up to two years. Work by the Electric Power Research Institute, however, has suggested that temporary EHV transformers could be placed in a matter of days and kept in operation long enough to source permanent replacements.

Severe Solar Storm Could Shut Down U.S. Grid for Months, Study Says

It's not out of the realm of possibility.

What would happen to all of the nuclear power plants if they could not maintain cooling for the reactors or spent fuel pools?

Here's a hint:

Also think about all of the spent fuel that needs constant cooling otherwise it heats up and melts down.

Back up generators only run as long as they have fuel. How long will fuel deliveries continue if there's no power grid distributing electricity?


Here is the .pdf of the study mentioned in my linked article:

Linky (direct .pdf link)

I could care less about electronics and such. You are talking to the wrong person my friend.

If the electric grid goes out, I'll be dancing in the streets!

No matter what happens, as long as I can piss, #, sleep, eat and drink water. .. grown my own food and look at the stars at night.

Life is going pretty well

Add to this thread.. Interesting article published today by the daily Galaxy..

NASA " Enormous Solar Flares Sparked creation of DNA Molecules Necessary For Life On Earth "

Our sun’s adolescence was stormy—and new evidence shows that these tempests may have been just the key to seeding life as we know it. Some 4 billion years ago, the sun shone with only about three-quarters the brightness we see today, but its surface roiled with giant eruptions spewing enormous amounts of solar material and radiation out into space. These powerful solar explosions may have provided the crucial energy needed to warm Earth, despite the sun’s faintness.The eruptions also may have furnished the energy needed to turn simple molecules into the complex molecules such as RNA and DNA that were necessary for life. Understanding what conditions were necessary for life on our planet helps us both trace the origins of life on Earth and guide the search for life on other planets. Until now, however, fully mapping Earth’s evolution has been hindered by the simple fact that the young sun wasn’t luminous enough to warm Earth.

Our young Earth, however, had a weaker magnetic field, with a much wider footprint near the poles. “Our calculations show that you would have regularly seen auroras all the way down in South Carolina,” says Airapetian, lead author of the paper. “And as the particles from the space weather traveled down the magnetic field lines, they would have slammed into abundant nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere. Changing the atmosphere’s chemistry turns out to have made all the difference for life on Earth.” The atmosphere of early Earth was also different than it is now: Molecular nitrogen – that is, two nitrogen atoms bound together into a molecule – made up 90 percent of the atmosphere, compared to only 78 percent today. As energetic particles slammed into these nitrogen molecules, the impact broke them up into individual nitrogen atoms. They, in turn, collided with carbon dioxide, separating those molecules into carbon monoxide and oxygen. The free-floating nitrogen and oxygen combined into nitrous oxide, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. When it comes to warming the atmosphere, nitrous oxide is some 300 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The teams’ calculations show that if the early atmosphere housed less than one percent as much nitrous oxide as it did carbon dioxide, it would warm the planet enough for liquid water to exist. This newly discovered constant influx of solar particles to early Earth may have done more than just warm the atmosphere, it may also have provided the energy needed to make complex chemicals. In a planet scattered evenly with simple molecules, it takes a huge amount of incoming energy to create the complex molecules such as RNA and DNA that eventually seeded life. While enough energy appears to be hugely important for a growing planet, too much would also be an issue — a constant chain of solar eruptions producing showers of particle radiation can be quite detrimental. Such an onslaught of magnetic clouds can rip off a planet’s atmosphere if the magnetosphere is too weak. Understanding these kinds of balances help scientists determine what kinds of stars and what kinds of planets could be hospitable for life.

www.dailygalaxy.com...< br />

Source paper on Nature Geoscience Member site..
www.nature.com...

a reply to: skywatcher44

Add to this thread.. Interesting article published today by the daily Galaxy..

First: I am having trouble finding a NASA source which says, "Enormous Solar Flares Sparked creation of DNA Molecules Necessary For Life On Earth"

Second: The dailygalaxy article is more about CMEs than Solar flares. They are not the same thing.
www.abovetopsecret.com...


Third: Your link to the source paper is invalid. This one works. It seems that the paper is more about the formation of nitrous oxide. I see nothing which suggests the formation of DNA molecules.
www.readcube.com...

Here is a somewhat more down to Earth look at the study:
www.sciencenews.org...

a reply to: Phage

Sorry Page I should have read your solar primer before posting.. I get the daily galaxy updates on my twitter account and thought after reading this it was interesting. Maybe they should have stated CME's instead or along with Solar Flares..

The title I posted should have been " NASA Kepler Mission " as It is in the article .

Here is the link for the story from NASA Kepler it was published on May 23rd 2016, they do actually mention CME'S in the story and in the Daily galaxy article.

Such studies also show that young stars frequently produce powerful flares – giant bursts of light and radiation — similar to the flares we see on our own sun today. Such flares are often accompanied by huge clouds of solar material, called coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, which erupt out into space.

www.nasa.gov...

The link to nature originally worked.. But now seems to be broken. There is a link in your " more down to Earth look at the Study " within the citations that does not work also..

Here is another link same same.. Peace.. I am still interested and thanks for your pointers..

phys.org...

Anyone not interested don't bother looking look for someone or something else to belittle and comment on. FFS.