Solar Flare 20/12/12

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 10:22 am

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/to ... -to-worry/

It seems in the worst case scenario (according to a friend) the world wide grid of electricity will be taken down once a big flare is noticed. It takes 12 hours for a flare to reach us so thats the warning we will have. Unfortunately we have no way of knowing how long it will last so we could be living in the stone age for a week or more. In December in the UK its a cold time so its significant for us. Storing water and supplies is not a problem but staying warm will be. Anything with a microchip is likely to fry during the event. The only consolation is that we will all see the Northern lights during the night time since the power of the flare would be unusually powerful.

If we survive that we should be ok until 2039. When a continent killer meteor will have a 99% chance of hitting us. In 2029 the same meteor will pass us so close you will see it in the sky. Fitting rockets to the surface forcing itself out of our trajectory is supposedly the answer. Hopefully we have the technology to do it by then. I'll be 70 by then so won't mind going out with a bang.

So come next November get some calor gas bottles stocked up for the big freeze. I am sure with no comms it will be a free week off. I am not sure if radiation is a problem or not, but staying in playing eye spy seems like a high possibility.

dcharlie · Post by **dcharlie** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 10:52 am

More drama for the news networks to peddle! YOU BETTER CONSUME NOW !!!!

maxlords · Post by **maxlords** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 12:12 pm

Solar flares = COMPLETELY unpredictable. Bah.

Ruldra · Post by **Ruldra** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 5:08 pm

The end of the world is upon us! ...again!

TransatlanticFoe · Post by **TransatlanticFoe** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 9:20 pm

Yeah, but the supervolcano under Yellowstone park could blow at any moment in which case we're all doomed.

And it's not all doom and gloom that a massive meteor might come too close for comfort in 2029 - remember that we defeat Skynet. Otherwise we get Bruce Willis out of cryostatis to dump a nuke inside the thing. Simples.

null1024 · Post by **null1024** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 9:28 pm

...the big freeze.

ahahahahah yay south Florida

A bit more seriously, how would one remotely attempt to block their electronics from getting fried in such an event?

TransatlanticFoe · Post by **TransatlanticFoe** » Sat Jul 30, 2011 11:21 pm

It is important to understand that severe solar storms produce only the E3 component that burns out power grid transformers and induce DC-like currents in very long electrical conductors. Solar storms do not produce the fast E1 component that can be so damaging to electronics

from:

http://www.futurescience.com/emp.html

So it would appear that, unlike the EMP from a nuclear detonation, electronics would be unaffected. I'm unsure of the specifics of EMP blasts, as my magnetic flux and induced currents knowledge is all some 10 years rusty. So electronics would be safe from a solar storm EMP provided they're not plugged into the grid. Satellites will probably have to cope with other radiation which may knock them out but most stuff within the atmosphere ought to be safe.

If you want your old consoles to be safe against a Goldeneye strike... a faraday cage should do the trick (apparently the office I work in has one in its structure, which all but stops mobile phone use inside the building). Apparently Zorin Industries didn't really mass produce microchips hardened against EMP blasts like they said in A View To A Kill.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 3:54 am

Apparently the concern is in 2013, the sun will reach a stage of its cycle when these large events are more likely.

Wha? There's like what... 5 billion years left in the Sun's expected life cycle and they're going to pinpoint a phase-shift down to a fucking year? Please tell me I'm missing something.

maxlords · Post by **maxlords** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 4:36 am

GaijinPunch wrote:
Apparently the concern is in 2013, the sun will reach a stage of its cycle when these large events are more likely.
Wha? There's like what... 5 billion years left in the Sun's expected life cycle and they're going to pinpoint a phase-shift down to a fucking year? Please tell me I'm missing something.

Yup....you're missing your paranoia.

ColonelFatso · Post by **ColonelFatso** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 6:50 am

Not the life cycle, the solar activity cycle. The surface of the sun isn't rigid, and sunspots/prominences/etc. come and go. The relative concentration of these events corresponds roughly to an 11-year cycle (you could consider it a solar "year" comprising several "seasons" - although the sun's actual "year" is about 200 million Earth years). What NASA is so worried about is that the solar events of the past few decades correspond to a massive flare in the mid-19th century:

“The sun has been particularly quiet for the last few years in a protracted solar minimum. It has just woken up, as it were, and started its usual 11-year cycle a bit later than most.”

So what’s going on? Well, something similar has happened before. In 1859 a huge solar storm burned out telegraph wires across Europe and the United States.

This doesn't mean I'm terribly worried, but the astrophysicists wouldn't be doing their jobs correctly if they didn't point this out.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 10:47 am

Okay, a bit more precise. But yeah... predictable? Not really. Hope it doesn't happen, obviously. Living in the fucking plate tectonic hot zone, I've found that worrying about this shit is simply futile.

LtC · Post by **LtC** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 7:44 pm

Solar activity is pretty interesting. Last time I read about it they said there was a possibility sun could go through a period of low activity leading to minor global cooling. If sun got active again I suppose we don't have to worry about that. I read the article and it was nothing like tone of OP's post. Solar flares happen all the time and the only people who usually have to worry for their safety from Solar flares are the people on the ISS who'll take shelter inside the station. Satellites can also suffer damage but things on earth's surface are usually safe although there has been cases of blackouts at least once in Sweden and Canada from as far as I know although they haven't really been that apocalyptic. The truth is that the power grids in most countries haven't prepared for something like a major solar flare but then again if that one in who knows how many situation where it does happen happens I doubt it will rain destruction like OP's post suggests.

If you want something more apocalyptic to worry about: Worry about gamma ray bursts. If a heavily consentrated gamma ray burst from a nearby enough supernova just happens to be pointed at earth it will cause mass extinction on earth. It has happened before!

neorichieb1971 wrote:http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/to ... -to-worry/
If we survive that we should be ok until 2039. When a continent killer meteor will have a 99% chance of hitting us. In 2029 the same meteor will pass us so close you will see it in the sky. Fitting rockets to the surface forcing itself out of our trajectory is supposedly the answer.

What? Source to this? Getting hit by a meteor is like hitting a fly from 2000 metres with a rifle. Are you sure it's not 99‰ and not 99%? I doubt they can calculate that big of a probability.

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Sun Jul 31, 2011 11:56 pm

Apparently CME's (Coronal Mass Ejections) are what we really have to watch out for, and could completely fist the whole planet if we're in the path of one.

The Expanding Man · Post by **The Expanding Man** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:01 am

Leader Bee · Post by **Leader Bee** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 11:23 am

LtC wrote:
neorichieb1971 wrote:http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/to ... -to-worry/
If we survive that we should be ok until 2039. When a continent killer meteor will have a 99% chance of hitting us. In 2029 the same meteor will pass us so close you will see it in the sky. Fitting rockets to the surface forcing itself out of our trajectory is supposedly the answer.
What? Source to this? Getting hit by a meteor is like hitting a fly from 2000 metres with a rifle. Are you sure it's not 99‰ and not 99%? I doubt they can calculate that big of a probability.

I believe he's talking about Apophis which is old news, It holds the record for having the highest risk probability of hitting earth on the Torino impact hazard scale ever. (level 4, has since been lowered to level 1).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis

maxlords · Post by **maxlords** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 2:41 pm

GaijinPunch wrote:Apparently CME's (Coronal Mass Ejections) are what we really have to watch out for, and could completely fist the whole planet if we're in the path of one.

Sounds dirty. Also, I don't really think we have to watch out for em....8 minutes after it happens, we're done anyway. Why worry?

GaijinPunch · Post by **GaijinPunch** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 3:55 pm

maxlords wrote:
GaijinPunch wrote:Apparently CME's (Coronal Mass Ejections) are what we really have to watch out for, and could completely fist the whole planet if we're in the path of one.

Sounds dirty. Also, I don't really think we have to watch out for em....8 minutes after it happens, we're done anyway. Why worry?

I'd need to Google, and I'm too tired to do that, but I don't think it moves at the speed of light... so it would take longer.

Lied. I Googled.

Coronal mass ejections reach velocities between 20km/s to 3200km/s with an average speed of 489km/s, based on

maxlords · Post by **maxlords** » Mon Aug 01, 2011 6:12 pm

Oh ok....brain was tired. That's right...it takes light 12 minutes to reach us at 186,000 mps, so I guess we'd have a few hours or days to panic and hire prostitues.

shmups.system11.org

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