A massive explosion on the sun's surface has triggered the largest solar radiation storm since 2005, hurling charged particles at Earth. (NASA / May 4, 2012)
Posted on 05/05/2012 7:09:10 PM PDT by null and void
A massive explosion on the sun's surface has triggered the largest solar radiation storm since 2005, hurling charged particles at Earth. (NASA / May 4, 2012)
A stream of highly charged particles from the sun is headed straight toward Earth, threatening to plunge cities around the world into darkness and bring the global economy screeching to a halt.
This isn't the premise of the latest doomsday thriller. Massive solar storms have happened before — and another one is likely to occur soon, according to Mike Hapgood, a space weather scientist at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford, England.
Much of the planet's electronic equipment, as well as orbiting satellites, have been built to withstand these periodic geomagnetic storms. But the world is still not prepared for a truly damaging solar storm, Hapgood argues in a recent commentary published in the journal Nature.
Hapgood talked with The Times about the potential effects of such a storm and how the world should prepare for it.
We had a recent flare-up of publicity in March thanks to a solar storm that didn't really amount to much. Is this sort of coverage a good thing or a bad thing?
It makes such a good scare story, and it's entertaining. It was a mildly interesting event, certainly, but not at all big-league stuff. It makes people think, "Oh it's nothing really," so experts like myself are in danger of being in the crying-wolf situation. That's something that is a concern to me, personally.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
zzzz...
Shouldn’t that be Bill Clinton? Though, I guess he’d be pulling her down by her lip.
It had to hurt when he let go!
We need to send a sacrifice to the sun gods, send Barry on a one way trip to the sun.
“We’re doomed!”
Again?
“I’m selling Sun Block Cream with a “special solar flare-up repellent.” Just $19.95. But wait, if you act right now...”
Is there any chance I could get a second one for just the S&H charges (only 18.95)?
That may be true, but it's not like "we're all going to die!"
Must be all that global warming.
Excellent image! Thanks!
I have always loved that pic! Thanks!
I’m a’skeered.
Looked like my butt the other night after a very bad stomach ache. We posted No-Smoking signs around the neighborhood, just to be sure.
On second thought, it also looks like Nancy Pelosi’s face and Helen Thomas’s face.
Guess they all have something in common.
Their Apprehensions arise from several Changes they dread in the Celestial Bodies. For Instance; that the Earth by the continual Approaches of the Sun towards it, must in Course of Time be absorbed or swallowed up. That the Face of the Sun will by Degrees be encrusted with its own Effluvia, and give no more Light to the World. That, the Earth very narrowly escaped a Brush from the Tail of the last Comet, which would have infallibly reduced it to Ashes; and that the next, which they have calculated for One and Thirty Years hence, will probably destroy us. For, if in its Perihelion it should approach within a certain Degree of the Sun, (as by their Calculations they have Reason to dread) it will conceive a Degree of Heat ten Thousand Times more intense than that of red hot glowing Iron; and in its Absence from the Sun, carry a blazing Tail Ten Hundred Thousand and Fourteen Miles long; through which if the Earth should pass at the Distance of one Hundred Thousand Miles from the Nucleus or main Body of the Comet, it must in its Passage be set on Fire, and reduced to Ashes. That the Sun daily spending its Rays without any Nutriment to supply them, will at last be wholly consumed and annihilated; which must be attended with the Destruction of this Earth, and of all the Planets that receive their Light from it.
These seem to have been replaced by "Obama is straight" stories lately.
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