[ThTh1] In September of 1859, a massive blast of radiation erupted from the surface of the Sun. These happen all the time, particularly when the Sun is in the most active part of its 11-year life cycle. But this one was different in two ways. First, it was a gigantic eruption, one of the largest ever recorded. And second, it was aimed right at Earth.
When it hit our atmosphere, the interaction of charged particles and the Earth’s magnetic field created induced a massive geomagnetic storm. Aurorae were so powerful, people could read by them and they were seen as far south as Cuba and Hawaii. The induced current caused telegraph systems to overload, shocking operators and starting fires. Two years later, the US erupted into Civil War.
OK, that last one might not have been related.
If such a storm were to hit today, the consequences would be disastrous. Satellites would be fried and our power grid might completely collapse. The economic damage of such an event in the United States alone is estimated to be anywhere up to a couple of trillion dollars. In March 1989, a smaller storm fried transformers and knocked out power in Quebec. In 2012, a Carrington-sized event occurred but missed Earth by a small amount.
The good news is that we don’t just have to lie down and take this. We can harden the grid with devices that can absorb excess electrical power. And if we had prior warning of an event, we could shut the grid down and mitigate the worst of it. This process isn’t cheap — you’re probably looking at tens of billions of dollars. But the potential cost of not doing it is much greater. And it’s only a matter of time.
I bring this up because the Sun has just entered a new solar cycle. It wills soon ramp up to its maximum activity. The prediction is that it will be as intense as the last cycle was. And while that cycle was comparatively gentle, it did have a Carrington-sized eruption.
In other words, the clock continues to tick. And it’s about time we did something about it.
[ThTh2] I will never not like astrophotography.
The ISS and Mars cross paths above San Diego on Sept. 14, 2020 at 05:15:47PDT. Transit line was ~90m wide on the ground.
Video: https://t.co/t0bHnBtkxE
Stills: https://t.co/t9EcOTQttL pic.twitter.com/VzSP4xfdgP— Tom Glenn (@thomasdglenn) September 22, 2020
[ThTh3] What creature is the deadliest to humans? Sharks? Lions? Bats? Ants? Nope. It’s mosquitos. Those tiny disease-spreading vermin may have killed as many as 50 billion of us over their long history. Second place might go to the flea of the black rat, which spread the bubonic plague.
[ThTh4] Under certain circumstances, a planet can be bigger than its star (although less massive).
[ThTh5] A wonderful illustration of how microwaves work. They are literally light waves cooking your burrito. They’re just too big to get through the little holes in the grating.
You can measure the speed of light at home using just a microwave and a bar of chocolate! pic.twitter.com/9kyZM45uNY
— David Berardo (@CentrlPotential) September 20, 2020
[ThTh6] What candy can teach us about rock formations.
[ThTh7] You remember that amazing picture of the black hole? It’s changing even as we watch.
ThTh1: We CAN harden the grid, but WILL we?
Infrastructure maintenance is not “sexy”
And I am sure there are people out there who refuse to believe solar storms are a thing.Report
We can’t even keep our bridges in good repair and power lines fall down often enough to set California on fire every fall.
Yeah, the next Carrington event might as well be the SMOD.Report
ThTh6: I loved how in this one, the guys playing with rock candy noticed the formations, thought it was interesting, and decided to go looking to see where this happens in nature. And because one guy on the team was from China…Report
I believe the best estimates for the numbers of humans ever to have existed is about 100 billion. So, this would imply mosquitoes killed half of all humans. Seems way too high to me.Report
ThTh3 = I’m going to vote for humans being the creatures deadliest to humans, though if mosquitos are even 1/5 that number, humans might be in second place.Report
ThTh1: I’m not really worried about stuff like powerlines as much as I’m worried about stuff like “everything”.
This is going to fry pretty much every single electronic device out there. Like, your old 8-Track Player? Kiss it goodbye. Your smart fridge? Kiss it goodbye. I don’t even want to think about Playstations, Computers, or Televisions.Report
I wonder if making a house-sized tinfoil hat would protect things? I seem to remember there was some kind of “shielding” that could be done to protect sensitive devices.
That said? Maybe another reason not to join the Internet of Things. I don’t need my washing machine texting me to say its cycle is done.Report
I imagine the simple garbage disposal. It ain’t much, right? A simple engine, some simple gears, plugged into the wall.
Would a solar event do to the garbage disposal what happened to the telegraph offices?
I ask because I have a garbage disposal.
(As for the tin foil hats, studies have shown that those not only don’t work, they might even make things worse.)Report
Granted, I’m not an electrical engineer, but IIRC, a solar event won’t kick your disposal on. It’ll fry anything not shielded, and it could induce a current in wires, but the reason it shocked telegram operators is because they were sitting at the end of miles and miles of wire that was exposed to the event, without breakers between them and those wires.Report
So my garbage disposal ought to be okay… will my 8-Track player be okay?
I might need an EE here…Report
Consider a comparison between the effects from a CME and an EMP. (This on the surface; things are different for satellites, particularly those in high orbits.) EMPs fry “everything” because of the short initial very high voltage spike generated. That spike can induce significant voltages even in relatively short lengths of wire. CMEs don’t have that initial spike. CMEs fry things by inducing long duration (days) DC voltages capable of large current flows. Apply that to a transformer and pretty soon it gets hot. Do that to an oil-filled electric grid transformer and Bad Things eventually happen. See, for example, Quebec 1989. PCs and Macs existed in 1989; Quebec’s PCs and Macs didn’t die, but lots of oil-filled transformers did, some spectacularly.Report
Would I need to unplug things? Or leave them turned off?
Thinking now of my grandma who always insisted we unplug the tv during electrical storms because she was convinced lightning could strike the antenna, and then travel down and emerge as a fireball from the tv…Report
So try not to drip butter on your keyboard.Report
Okay, that’s exactly what I’m worried about.
Hrm. So we just have to worry about stuff with capacitors?Report
No. Worry about the semi-local transformers that step 138 kV down to your local grid voltages and aren’t protected. Worry about utilities that have been cheap enough that they can’t handle a few hundred volts DC difference in ground potential at different points in their grid. A CME is not going to fry your consumer electronics. But the whole damned grid may be down for days/weeks.Report
Oh, good.
I mean, bad. But it’s not an ELE.Report
If you live in California, what will be the signs of a serious CME? Would it momentarily seem like the electricity is back on before things return to normal?Report
ThTh2: In college, my roommate was an astronomy major. One night he was observing Jupiter through the student telescope when the field of view was suddenly filled with flashing colored lights. He screamed, jumped back, looked up, and saw the Goodyear blimp floating by.
He’s probably the only person to have telescopically observed an occultation of Jupiter by the Goodyear blimp. Too bad he didn’t get any pictures.Report
ThTh3: To be fair, that’s not adjusted for total encounters. Lions and sharks are much more deadly on a per-encounter basis.Report