Killjoy ping.
Oh, great. Another crisis this admin won’t let go to waste.
True, but a CME could potentially do a heck of a lot more to an airplane’s electronics than the cell phones they make us turn off.
OK...but what happens when all the electrical power transformers are fried world wide....?
(hint...same result but slower....)
“there simply isn’t enough energy in the sun to send a killer fireball 93 million miles”
Totally unscientific statement. Depends how that energy is used. There is “enough energy in the sun” to do just about anything, if used in the appropriate manner.
The Sun is a monumental problem and should be destroyed immediately! Then, we could et back to normal.
“inconstant Moon” by Larry Niven is a great tale about a killer flare. The protagonist survives but many do not.
I’m not sure why a killer flare is impossible, a huge fusion torch like our sun could not dose up Earth with 500 REMS or so? It’s really not that much energy.
The last cycle took almost 15 years to complete, and will likely peak at some 50% fewer sunspots than were predicted just a couple of years ago. Also cycle 25, which should be making itself known at the poles, is nowhere to be seen.
Not sure what the range of "standard" is, but these do seem like some noteworthy items to gloss over.
While in the same breath....the Carrington event of 1859
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2003/23oct_superstorm/
Hey, at least long range ham/amateur radio communications will be enhanced...skip talk. Could be useful if TSHTF in 2012.
That's an idiotic statement by the author. This fact we haven't seen anything serious occur doesn't mean it cannot. The sun rotates just like other celestial bodies and the flares/CMEs can miss us. Perhaps we've just been extremely lucky.
Dang! I was hoping something would have some chance to save us from obamo's 2nd, 3rd, & 4th terms.
“And, even at their worst, the sun’s flares are not physically capable of destroying Earth”
No but they can knock out the big transformers and take down the grid. Then we will all be stars in the new reality series “Back to the Past of 1832” or “How I learned to read by candlelight and wash the clothes in a pot over a fire in the back yard.”
Those transformers take 2 years to replace as we do not produce them in the USA. The only people who will be living in any semblence of normality are those with an alternative electrical system, well and wood stoves and at least 1 year of food stored up. Look down your street. Who has solar or wind? Thats what I thought. We are putting it in our mountain house. Most people will not survive 1-2 years without elecricity. We could see a 70-90% die off in the US alone.
I guess that's NASA's latest prediction. They've been moving it forward a year for the last 3, because there was such a dearth of sunspots in the 2008-2010 time frame. They kept predicting the new solar cycle would ramp up, and it just didn't happen. Now the sunspots are coming back, but they're not anywhere NEAR a maximum, and may not even get there by 2014, despite NASA predictions.
Another solar storm like the Carrington Event of 1859 would kill a lot of people given our dependence upon technology.