Science post / Solar storm activity and impending 2012 maximum
Click to viewSince June is a month dedicated to science and technology themed posts, I thought this was newsworthy. A huge explosion on the Sun's surface was recorded earlier today. As Discovery Magazine notes on their website.
What you’re seeing here is a solar flare (an enormous explosion of pent-up magnetic energy) coupled with a prominence (a physical eruption of gas from the surface). This event blasted something like a billion tons of material away from the Sun. Note the size of it, too: while it started from a small region on the Sun’s surface, it quickly expanded into a plume easily as big as the Sun itself! I’d estimate its size at well over a million kilometers across [the Earth is a mere 8,000 Km in width]. It looks like most of the material fell back down to the Sun’s surface; that’s common, though sometimes such an event manages to blast the material completely away into space.
Last year, NASA issued a high level alert that 2012 would see large Solar storms, possibly one of the largest, with the potential to cause nearly trillions of dollars in damage to communications satellites, communications, computer systems, the International Space Station and its inhabitants would be at risk, and these storms could even knock out some electrical grids around the world for up to several years. And this isn't idle speculation: several years ago, 14 power stations in South Africa were knocked out by massive Solar flares; in the mid 19th century, a storm was powerful enough to knock out telegraphs in the United States. Michio Kaku appeared on Fox News last year when the first warnings were issued, and since then, NASA has ramped up the warnings. And is able to explain the circumstances surrounding the storm. I'm not sure if Congress ever passed the minimum package meant to beef up protection for the power grids, but in this political climate, I'd be surprised if it did. As some of the hosts on Fox News commented: the story reminded them a bit of Y2K. But one of the reasons why Y2K turned out as well as it did was precisely because precautions were taken. And I guess the analogy for purchasing insurance would work in this instance: it's a pain in the ass, but you buy it to cover your butt when something unpredictable happens; but these Solar storms ARE predictable in a sense, and our infrastructure needs better protection anyway. It's a win-win situation.