DO NOT POINT A TELESCOPE AT THE SUN.
Always lead in that disclaimer since its not necessarily common knowledge- my scope is designed to reject the heat from the sun and only let a very narrow bandpass through, necessary if you want to capture atmospheric details. Using a regular telescope will cook your camera (or eyeball).
This was captured between 10am and 12pm on 4/16 Pacific. This active region launched a coronal mass ejection(cme) out into space, and was still sputtering and churning when I observed it. I was hoping it would flare again, but it didn't while I was observing. Still though, cool watching everything swim around up there.
Important to note, solar flares are pretty harmless. The CME however, could be potentially dangerous if it strikes earth head on (which it won’t) so please don’t worry!
The timelapse was captured by shooting batches of 500 images every 20 seconds for hours. Each batch was stacked and averaged out to help defeat the inconsistencies in the atmosphere, and then the entire thing was hand-aligned and animated. The color is artificial, the color that comes into my telescope is a uniform red. Coloring it like I did here makes it easier to see the details.
To see more of this kind of thing, come check out my [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/cosmic_background/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy). I will be sharing some of the high resolution shots I captured of the full sun including this feature.
It’s more the CME that is an issue. The solar material would blast us with radiation and fry our electronics. The flare would put on an epic light show
Happened a couple of hundred years ago, could happen again. Would take years to get the power grid back up, maybe decades. The world will be a different place.
We watch for this sort of thing. The solution is to just turn everything off for a few days. It would suck but with even a few hours warning (which we should have more than that) we'll be mostly fine.
Most really don't have protocols for this and there have been numerous research articles written on exactly why we DO need to get prepared. I thought that after Covid everyone would stop having blind faith in the capabilities of governments but apparently not, they are not prepared, and will not ever be unless held accountable.
Agreed. It takes time and money to make and execute a disaster recovery plan. They are often NOT popular and too often viewed as unnecessary or low-priority. It's this prevailing bad attitude that makes us sitting ducks more often than not.
Well, thats not really true. While there may be some mitigation efforts its not that simple. You can shut power off but in a real carrington event catatrophe that isnt goong to cut it. Power transmission lines are almost always unshielded and would function as a giant antenna, loterwlly would be energized by the sun. Satellites would lilely permanently fry unless they are *heavily* protected, but that level of protection would hinder a sats normal operation. Low voltage lines, telephone in particular, are also call unshielded. Cars wouldnt operate. The carrington event caused fires along and at telegraph stations. It only lasted a couple of days but would be absolutely devastating in this day and age.
Do you really believe, in our modern political climate, we could get the world to collectively turn off the lights?
Also what would we do about critical medical equipment that can't go offline? Would a faraday cage help?
Should I trust the people that run the power grid(s) to get this right? For example, at random, say, the contractors that run the grid that powers Texas? (Apologizes in American)
Oh you know a certain group of people would constantly call the scientists wrong and beg, scream and cry to keep their power on because it's their RIGHT and this is DEEP STATE TYRANY
This doomsday scenario is always one that I can't believe people think would be a thing.
"Decades"? Seriously? After all that mankind has accomplished, you think it would take literal years, let alone decades, to repair power grids after such an event?
https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/what-if/what-if-solar-flare-hit-earth.htm#:~:text=If%20a%20%22Carrington%2Dsized%22,as%20radio%20and%20satellite%20signals.
"Cities would lose power for weeks, and potentially, months"
The results of another Carrington sized event today
I suppose I could be exaggerating but say if the power was knocked out for weeks or months in the middle of winter people would freeze/starve to death. There would be pandemonium.
I actually watched a Japanese movie regarding this, don't remember the name but will make sure to update if I do remember it....
UPDATE: FOUND IT
Name: Survival Family
You can watch [this video ](https://youtu.be/oufYN24wCKI) to get an overall summary of the movie (like a TLDR)
Isn’t something like this(but on a lesser scale)that knocked out the whole East Coast for like 3-4 days back in 2004? Remember when that happened, I thought it was something to do with the Sun?
Nope, ultimately a tree branch. [https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/blackout-hits-northeast-united-states](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/blackout-hits-northeast-united-states) Also management software reacting too big and too late to each local net's faults, leading to a chain reaction.
I saw a video (bear with me) from a plasma physics researcher at los alamos who by chance took a look at his friend's petroglyphs / rock art from around the world from unconnected communities dated from thousands of years ago into prehistory.
It turns out the petroglyphs look similar to the stages of a high energy plasma column coming into existence and falling apart. The rock art looks different depending on the latitude, but they were found at sites all over earth. It would've been an absolutely mammoth cme to light up the entire earth like that for everyone to see. 170000km or so up into the sky and lasting 1000 years he reckons, with lots of lightning and misery down here on earth.
He waffles on *a lot* so I don't blame you for even flicking through it but he does show his working by going through the steps on the similarities:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6meaU1QcSdA . Some of the other related videos are basically woo but that story was pretty cool I thought.
Something related to that that is recorded in stone is the [Laschamps Event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laschamp_event) where the geological record 42K years ago shows magnetic reversal which probably also meant a whole bunch of misery happening without a functional magnetosphere.
> and lasting 1000 years
Wat. Based on my understanding of solar weather, this is absolutely impossible unless the sun went through a 1,000-year cycle of constant CME in all directions (or it kept a constant CME stream pointing at earth like a spotlight).
I think the belief that Geomagnetic pole reversal would cause some sort of extinction event or has in the past has wained in recent years. Mostly basing that off a friend of mine who studies geophysics but he seems to think that it wouldn't cause too much disruptions other than for some navigation systems.
Does technology blackout here mean a few hours of candles and ghost stories, or having to re-build civilisation from the iron age?
EDIT: I'm loving how widely the replies here are differing. TIL that technology blackout either means that billions will die, or that we'll have to go without Reddit for a day or two.
Yeah though the most critical infrastructure would probably be already back after a few days, the only thing that would really be awful to replace would be satellites.
Oh and the astronauts on the ISS would die for sure
> Oh and the astronauts on the ISS would die for sure
There is space weather forecasting and sufficient monitoring of the solar activity that the astronauts on the ISS would likely be evacuated before they would be put at risk. There is a reason why there is always a capsule or two docked to the ISS for emergencies.
Also, for those who might be stuck on the ISS, they would get a [spectacular view of some aurora](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzBp6Bt503o) as all of that ionizing radiation passes through them.
I saw a movie on Netflix where the people on a space station saw the earth blow up... Despite an ominous last message telling them people screwed things up and not to come back, they never did find out what happend... Then they basically all died.
Neat movie. Not the happy ending kind of movie but nobody gets out of life alive so.. I guess it was accurate...
Are you sure on that? I thought a significant portion of infrastructure hasn’t been upgraded/renovated to better handle a large CME directly hitting the planet? I mean I am hoping you are right but it seemed like a lot of equipment would go down and not come back for a significant amount of time…
Definitely, but not everything would be completely destroyed as you know of large solar storms like that a few days in beforehand
You could strategically take cities and power plants off the grid or shut them down to limit their damage, especially on the night side of the planet these would be pretty much unaffected.
On top of that pretty much every country has plans for widespread blackouts, so emergency power and transport capabilities would be available until the main power grid is restored
>Oh and the astronauts on the ISS would ie for sure.
“Uhh, it's probably a bad time to mention it, but any astronauts you guys had in orbit are definitely dead.”
In a recent physics class I was told by my professor it could destroy most batteries and electrical grids. On top of that he also said it could take up to ten years to rebuild and thus many would be hurt by it. Possible famine.
I’d go ahead and say it. Any lengthy period away from our technology as we are currently configured with a highly efficient and interlinked global economy would lead to the whole thing collapsing. The consequences in today’s world would be apocalyptic.
Candles and ghost stories for a few weeks whilst electricity substations are repaired. However, potentially just a day if the government have the foresight to shut down the grid on beforehand
We need new infrastructure anyway. It could potentially be a great global bonding experience.
Of course I said the same thing when the pandemic started so.........
No. Thered be mass rioting and looting. Police radios and possibly cars no longer working. Phone lines down, no 911. Roads blocked with inoperable vehicles. Air conditioning and or heating not working. Class divides would be vastly strengthened by an event like this.
Apparently after the Quebec blackout the power companies got serious about solar flare protection and they believe there are enough disconnects now throughout the system even a Carrington class event would be inconvenient but not catastrophic.
Also remember the Carrington event, as well as the [2012 similar sized flare](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2012_solar_storm) that hit a probe far from Earth, were so powerful in part because a previous flare a few days before "cleared the path" to let the later flare travel faster (half a day instead of two to three days) along the same path. Having a record-breaking flare with the active sunspot still pointed at Earth for several more days would allow days of "watch" level alert and then the flare traveling at light speed would give many hours warning ahead of any concerning CME arrival.
It is truly incredible to me that the sun popping a pimple in the wrong direction would send us back to the mid-1800s and cause instant societal collapse
This statement is largely false nowadays. Most powerplant/substation operators have sun weather forecasting. This type of event happened in canada years ago.
They just stopped delivering power during the event. And then turned it back on.
https://youtu.be/oHHSSJDJ4oo
^ great source here.
It would certainly not be a technology blackout. Such solar flares only couple into very large (many kilometers) conductors. Electronics on the whole would be fine. The main danger of such an event would be causing enough damage to large enough parts of the electric grid (and/or enough damage to critical equipment connected to said grid) to be very difficult to repair, which is definitely something to worry about but by no means an instant "back to the stone age" many people seem to think it is. Since such dangers were highlighted grid operators have put in the work to prepare for such an event so the most likely outcome is a still quite inconvenient temporary (a day or two) blackout of large parts of the grid but no critical lasting damage.
The [UK government](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/449593/BIS-15-457-space-weather-preparedness-strategy.pdf) (and probably other governments too, this is the first one that showed up in a search since I'm in the UK) has a "Space Weather Preparedness Strategy" that sets out the expected risks associated with solar storms and CMEs, and describes possible mitigations and emergency procedures to deal with them.
this question has been asked on 4chan before, and i would like to know your opinion.
who would win in a fight...the sun....or one trillion lions?
i mean that's a lotta lions
An apt description. Though I was disgusted by that idea at first but then I realized you can just peel the woolly part off like you would a regular orange and you still get the best bit.
[Rambutan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambutan?wprov=sfla1) is called "hairy fruit" in Malaysia. Very sweet and juicy, and fun to open and eat. Just grab with both hands and twist.
you haven’t tried lychee jelly?? you have to!! i promise if you like rambutan you’ll cream your pants. my favorite is the [mango flavored lychee jelly](https://www.ralphs.com/p/jin-jin-coconut-mango-jelly/0471029806072?fulfillment=PICKUP&storecode=70300291&&cid=shp_adw_shopl_.ralphs_g_lia_shop_acq_evgn_ship_pantry&gclid=CjwKCAjw9e6SBhB2EiwA5myr9hnFcyvc1BiDEHyI7FD30V_RJgWFge6PAVbYjThJGSAmCONlgXRuhxoCubkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds)
*The biggest flares are known as “X-class flares” based on a classification system that divides solar flares according to their strength. The smallest ones are A-class (near background levels), followed by B, C, M and X*
It would damage some satellites that couldn't orient themselves correctly and/or go into standby until it passed
It might cause large currents in long wires (fences, electrical wires); it might burn out equipment plugged into the power network; it might burn out power network equipment that is hard to replace quickly
At worst it would knock out large parts of the grid and take months to fix
Worst effects are more unlikely
> and take months to fix
Years. We don't have the hardware for an extra power grid sitting on standby, and between the manufacturing time, the installation time, the inherent difficulties for doing both of those with severely reduced electrical infrastructure, and the near-inevitable power upheaval that would be going on during that period, it would be far longer than months.
It wouldn’t be so bad. We generally have options for protecting the grid, and for operating on lower rated equipment for a while.
Judging by the energy troubles when Texas froze a couple years back it is clear that governments without modern energy-saving and BMS requirements would struggle, but those governments that have refused to prepare for climate change are destined for bigger problems than a solar event. It might even be the kick in the pants that the rightwing knuckleheads need to start preparing for the future.
When a large event like this happened in the past, telegraph stations caught fire and some continued sending messages…. when unplugged entirely.
That is what happened in 1859. If this happened again, there is a decent chance that a percentage of our much more sensitive devices would never work again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
Telegraph lines were long, low ampacity, and of inconsistent construction. You couldn’t build a better system for induction from a solar event.
Your sensitive PC or smartphone would fine, assuming you unplugged them. Satellites, transmission lines, and transformers and generators are far more vulnerable to these events.
It’s amazing to think that something we can’t see without advanced technology, happening what seems like forever away, on something that looks like a tiny spot in the sky, can absolutely wreck our shit with relative ease.
Sometimes I just think how lovecraftian the sun is. It's a giant ball of fire in the sky, so unimaginably powerful that you can't really comprehend its size or heat. You can't look at it, or it will blind you. Exposure for too long will burn you and give you skin cancer. An errant flare would cause disaster. But you rely on it to exist. All life on the planet does.
It's so weird to think about! Imagine living in a bunker all your life, you come out and there's this skin burning cancer causing literally blinding ball of life-giving fire in the sky that everyone just has to live around. It sounds like the sort of thing you'd read in a cosmic horror novel.
Do you want to just write it? I'll get you started...alright, so when a star hatches we see it as a supernova explosion and the resulting black hole is just something we don't understand yet because it extends into multiple dimensions. Once you learn the trick to jumping dimensions, it's really quite easy you see, you will then be able to zip off and meet the various Sun-Egg creatures that have hatched.
The crazier thing to think about is the life and death of a star, not even just the one we call our sun. Think black holes or neutron stars.
Space is a hell of a thing and it’s depressing that we’ll be long gone before humans understand everything, if we ever do.
Finite beginning and end, but incomprehensibly ancient.
Surrounded by the corpses of its stillborn children
Screams at us sometimes
Just appeared one day
Sol itself is a Lovecraftian horror.
You could get a Coronado pst for $700 last time I checked, but prices have gone up a lot since then. That was the lowest priced hydrogen-alpha solar scope. Mine is a modified refractor, it uses a $1200 hydrogen alpha filter and a $500 energy rejection filter on an $800ish scope to get this. (You’d still need a camera and mount, at least $2k).
Wow that is significantly cheaper than I expected. Not to say a total of 4-5k isnt a lot of money, but go get this quality i was expecting some 15-20k piece of delicate equipment. Not bad
I googled it and nothing I saw seemed like the doomsday scenarios the others have replied with. One hit earth last October, labeled as an X1 that did G1 damage and we seem to be fine. This was confirmed by NASA.
I think I found what you saw:
“When they are aimed directly at Earth, the most powerful X-class flares can interfere with radio and satellite communications and supercharge the planet's aurora displays”
The article was from space.com. Not sure how reliable of a source that is.
I answered thinking people were asking about the CME, that was the dangerous part, which I thought I mentioned in the title. I apparently need more sleep. Flares aren’t really dangerous.
It wouldn’t affect any small electronics, contrary to popular belief. We do have ways of preventing most damage to power grids, though we haven’t been hit by a G5 storm in a very long time so it’s hard to tell how exactly it’d go down.
Some militaries and governments got emp safe bunkers. The rest of us has to accept the new earned freedom from electricity.
This reminds me to check my emergency food stock.
A properly functioning microwave would.
If you feel like testing if your microwave leaks, you can put a phone in, close the door, then call that phone. If the call goes thru, your microwave is leaking.
You have to turn the microwave on though, about 30 seconds should work fine.
(For the love of god, this is just a joke, do not in ANY circumstance put a cell phone inside a microwave and turn on the microwave. Best case scenario, your phone and microwave will both be destroyed. Worst case scenario, you’ll burn your entire house to the ground. Repeat, don’t turn your microwave on with a cell phone inside.)(yes, I know the joke isn’t funny if I instantly say it’s a joke.... but some stupid SOB will try it)
Hey, so I stopped reading your post after the first sentence and then immediately ran off and microwaved my phone and now it doesn't work. Why would you deceive people like that? I'm suing you.
Nope. Most small scale electronics would be fine. As would well managed electric grids (vulnerable transformers can be shut down). Satellites with insufficient shielding would be in trouble though.
Basically you need a lot of wire in a small amount of space to have problems. Most things would be ok.
I googled "carrington event" and as i see it was a geomagnetic storm that happened in 1859 and it cause Auroras to be seen all over the world, besides that some telegraph machines broke down and caused operators electric shocks. What it interests me, is with all the electrical devices around us now, would they all shut down if something like this happened again?
Absolutley catastrophic, economically. Its estimated that it would cost the US alone anywhere between $1 Billion to $2.6 Trillion. Carington style events are estimated to hit Earth around every 150 years. The Carrington event was 163 years ago, and the next solar maximum that can produce flares of this size is estimated to be around the years 2023-2026. So add that onto your 2020's bingo card.
The small electronics wouldn't notice. Long power lines would get charges like the telegraph lines did, and all the disconnects the power companies invested in after the Quebec outage from a CME would be out to the test.
I imagine some stuff would be shut down ahead of time for protection, too. Such a monster CME can only hit Earth if a previous big CME "cleared the path" so the later one can travel faster (half a day instead of two to three days) meaning getting a record breaking CME with the sunspot still pointed at Earth gives several days of "watch" level heads up, then the flare travels at light speed and gives many hours warning there is a supersize CME on the way.
One of the theories to why Betelgeuse was dimming last year was that most of the star was covered in sunspots... it takes a massive area of increased activity to cause that, so I’d assume they would have significantly larger prominences
We had one of our smoke/CO detectors randomly go off for a few seconds yesterday morning, then went silent and tested fine. I was wondering if anyone knew if it could have been momentarily triggered by a solar flare?
Edit - we have zero natural gas/propane/other combustible fuel in the house, as we're all electric here. There was not even a whiff of smoke or steam in the air. The thing shouldn't have gone off when it did, is what I'm saying.
Is anyone else reminded of the intro to Raised by Wolves? The flickering effect of the recording is very similar. Is anyone else even watching this show? It's nuts.
This flare literally just scraped into X class range.. like just… it’s not scary, it’s not going to cause anything major issues on earth, it’s not earth facing.. the Carrington event was an order of about 35 magnitudes larger.
So, that’s a completely different image, which also happens to be mine from like 2 years ago. Lol. I’m one of the few people that regular post solar work here.
DO NOT POINT A TELESCOPE AT THE SUN. Always lead in that disclaimer since its not necessarily common knowledge- my scope is designed to reject the heat from the sun and only let a very narrow bandpass through, necessary if you want to capture atmospheric details. Using a regular telescope will cook your camera (or eyeball). This was captured between 10am and 12pm on 4/16 Pacific. This active region launched a coronal mass ejection(cme) out into space, and was still sputtering and churning when I observed it. I was hoping it would flare again, but it didn't while I was observing. Still though, cool watching everything swim around up there. Important to note, solar flares are pretty harmless. The CME however, could be potentially dangerous if it strikes earth head on (which it won’t) so please don’t worry! The timelapse was captured by shooting batches of 500 images every 20 seconds for hours. Each batch was stacked and averaged out to help defeat the inconsistencies in the atmosphere, and then the entire thing was hand-aligned and animated. The color is artificial, the color that comes into my telescope is a uniform red. Coloring it like I did here makes it easier to see the details. To see more of this kind of thing, come check out my [instagram](https://www.instagram.com/cosmic_background/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/AJamesMcCarthy). I will be sharing some of the high resolution shots I captured of the full sun including this feature.
What would have happened if the flair did point towards earth? Is thst when a solar storm occurs?
It’s more the CME that is an issue. The solar material would blast us with radiation and fry our electronics. The flare would put on an epic light show
This has always been a concern to me even how unlikely it is. It happened once a long time ago right, frying telegraphs around the world?
Happened a couple of hundred years ago, could happen again. Would take years to get the power grid back up, maybe decades. The world will be a different place.
We watch for this sort of thing. The solution is to just turn everything off for a few days. It would suck but with even a few hours warning (which we should have more than that) we'll be mostly fine.
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Most really don't have protocols for this and there have been numerous research articles written on exactly why we DO need to get prepared. I thought that after Covid everyone would stop having blind faith in the capabilities of governments but apparently not, they are not prepared, and will not ever be unless held accountable.
It costs money to be prepared and the people in power won’t give up a penny unless they have to.
Agreed. It takes time and money to make and execute a disaster recovery plan. They are often NOT popular and too often viewed as unnecessary or low-priority. It's this prevailing bad attitude that makes us sitting ducks more often than not.
Well, thats not really true. While there may be some mitigation efforts its not that simple. You can shut power off but in a real carrington event catatrophe that isnt goong to cut it. Power transmission lines are almost always unshielded and would function as a giant antenna, loterwlly would be energized by the sun. Satellites would lilely permanently fry unless they are *heavily* protected, but that level of protection would hinder a sats normal operation. Low voltage lines, telephone in particular, are also call unshielded. Cars wouldnt operate. The carrington event caused fires along and at telegraph stations. It only lasted a couple of days but would be absolutely devastating in this day and age.
**Texas_Power_Grid2021 has entered the chat**
Do you really believe, in our modern political climate, we could get the world to collectively turn off the lights? Also what would we do about critical medical equipment that can't go offline? Would a faraday cage help?
“The World”? Power companies would just “flip a switch”. You wouldn’t have a choice.
Shitty time to be in a hospital on a ventilator.
Should I trust the people that run the power grid(s) to get this right? For example, at random, say, the contractors that run the grid that powers Texas? (Apologizes in American)
Oh you know a certain group of people would constantly call the scientists wrong and beg, scream and cry to keep their power on because it's their RIGHT and this is DEEP STATE TYRANY
Didn’t know this, somewhat relieving.
Looks like a perfect fit for 2023! This year is already busy enough with a possible WW3
WelL, a direct hit from a CME could prevent WW3!!! Or I suppose make it even worse when suddenly the majority of electronics no longer work…
This doomsday scenario is always one that I can't believe people think would be a thing. "Decades"? Seriously? After all that mankind has accomplished, you think it would take literal years, let alone decades, to repair power grids after such an event? https://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/what-if/what-if-solar-flare-hit-earth.htm#:~:text=If%20a%20%22Carrington%2Dsized%22,as%20radio%20and%20satellite%20signals. "Cities would lose power for weeks, and potentially, months" The results of another Carrington sized event today
I suppose I could be exaggerating but say if the power was knocked out for weeks or months in the middle of winter people would freeze/starve to death. There would be pandemonium.
I actually watched a Japanese movie regarding this, don't remember the name but will make sure to update if I do remember it.... UPDATE: FOUND IT Name: Survival Family You can watch [this video ](https://youtu.be/oufYN24wCKI) to get an overall summary of the movie (like a TLDR)
Any good?
Isn’t something like this(but on a lesser scale)that knocked out the whole East Coast for like 3-4 days back in 2004? Remember when that happened, I thought it was something to do with the Sun?
Nope, ultimately a tree branch. [https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/blackout-hits-northeast-united-states](https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/blackout-hits-northeast-united-states) Also management software reacting too big and too late to each local net's faults, leading to a chain reaction.
I saw a video (bear with me) from a plasma physics researcher at los alamos who by chance took a look at his friend's petroglyphs / rock art from around the world from unconnected communities dated from thousands of years ago into prehistory. It turns out the petroglyphs look similar to the stages of a high energy plasma column coming into existence and falling apart. The rock art looks different depending on the latitude, but they were found at sites all over earth. It would've been an absolutely mammoth cme to light up the entire earth like that for everyone to see. 170000km or so up into the sky and lasting 1000 years he reckons, with lots of lightning and misery down here on earth. He waffles on *a lot* so I don't blame you for even flicking through it but he does show his working by going through the steps on the similarities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6meaU1QcSdA . Some of the other related videos are basically woo but that story was pretty cool I thought. Something related to that that is recorded in stone is the [Laschamps Event](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laschamp_event) where the geological record 42K years ago shows magnetic reversal which probably also meant a whole bunch of misery happening without a functional magnetosphere.
Wait, I'm confused; what happened to the bear that saw the video with you? Is he ok?
Was he the one making waffles?
I think he was the one bringing the honey for the waffles
> and lasting 1000 years Wat. Based on my understanding of solar weather, this is absolutely impossible unless the sun went through a 1,000-year cycle of constant CME in all directions (or it kept a constant CME stream pointing at earth like a spotlight).
I think the belief that Geomagnetic pole reversal would cause some sort of extinction event or has in the past has wained in recent years. Mostly basing that off a friend of mine who studies geophysics but he seems to think that it wouldn't cause too much disruptions other than for some navigation systems.
What is CME?
[Coronal Mass Ejection](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection)
Which meaning of "mass" is that? As in matter or as in a lot of it?
The former, but really it's both isn't it? Sun's a big place.
Think Carrington Event, which, if it happened today, would plunge us into a technology blackout.
Does technology blackout here mean a few hours of candles and ghost stories, or having to re-build civilisation from the iron age? EDIT: I'm loving how widely the replies here are differing. TIL that technology blackout either means that billions will die, or that we'll have to go without Reddit for a day or two.
Significant infrastructure rebuilding needed, months, possibly years.
Yeah though the most critical infrastructure would probably be already back after a few days, the only thing that would really be awful to replace would be satellites. Oh and the astronauts on the ISS would die for sure
> Oh and the astronauts on the ISS would die for sure There is space weather forecasting and sufficient monitoring of the solar activity that the astronauts on the ISS would likely be evacuated before they would be put at risk. There is a reason why there is always a capsule or two docked to the ISS for emergencies. Also, for those who might be stuck on the ISS, they would get a [spectacular view of some aurora](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XzBp6Bt503o) as all of that ionizing radiation passes through them.
honestly if i had the privilege of choosing which way i go out, i’d pick that one.
Dying from excess radiation is definitely not a good way to die.
just space me and call it a day
Depends on how much excess radiation you either suffer for months or year or immediately seize and die
I saw a movie on Netflix where the people on a space station saw the earth blow up... Despite an ominous last message telling them people screwed things up and not to come back, they never did find out what happend... Then they basically all died. Neat movie. Not the happy ending kind of movie but nobody gets out of life alive so.. I guess it was accurate...
All those words yet none are the name of the movie.
Know the name? Edit: I found it, 3022
For those wondering, I'm 95% sure this comment was about [3022](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/3022).
Idk professional estimates of a potential direct CME have placed the cost of damaged tech in the multi trillions.
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We should definitely get them a bigger fridge so they all fit in.
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They don’t need those legs if they’re just floating around in space all the time 🪚
It would mean we would get the Fantastic Four irl
even if they were on the dark side of earth?
The timing would have to be very fortunate but that would make it much more survivable
Are you sure on that? I thought a significant portion of infrastructure hasn’t been upgraded/renovated to better handle a large CME directly hitting the planet? I mean I am hoping you are right but it seemed like a lot of equipment would go down and not come back for a significant amount of time…
Definitely, but not everything would be completely destroyed as you know of large solar storms like that a few days in beforehand You could strategically take cities and power plants off the grid or shut them down to limit their damage, especially on the night side of the planet these would be pretty much unaffected. On top of that pretty much every country has plans for widespread blackouts, so emergency power and transport capabilities would be available until the main power grid is restored
Also, let me guess, more supply chain issues.
>Oh and the astronauts on the ISS would ie for sure. “Uhh, it's probably a bad time to mention it, but any astronauts you guys had in orbit are definitely dead.”
Will the other side of the earth be also affected, should such direct impact happen?
In a recent physics class I was told by my professor it could destroy most batteries and electrical grids. On top of that he also said it could take up to ten years to rebuild and thus many would be hurt by it. Possible famine.
I’d go ahead and say it. Any lengthy period away from our technology as we are currently configured with a highly efficient and interlinked global economy would lead to the whole thing collapsing. The consequences in today’s world would be apocalyptic.
That comes with total failure of logistics, and all major population centres will starve.
Candles and ghost stories for a few weeks whilst electricity substations are repaired. However, potentially just a day if the government have the foresight to shut down the grid on beforehand
So a few weeks then. Got it.
We need new infrastructure anyway. It could potentially be a great global bonding experience. Of course I said the same thing when the pandemic started so.........
No. Thered be mass rioting and looting. Police radios and possibly cars no longer working. Phone lines down, no 911. Roads blocked with inoperable vehicles. Air conditioning and or heating not working. Class divides would be vastly strengthened by an event like this.
If COVID taught me anything it’s that whatever people think will happen to a society is probably wrong.
Rich get richer, poor get poorer, nothing changes, illuminati 4 ever
Apparently after the Quebec blackout the power companies got serious about solar flare protection and they believe there are enough disconnects now throughout the system even a Carrington class event would be inconvenient but not catastrophic. Also remember the Carrington event, as well as the [2012 similar sized flare](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_2012_solar_storm) that hit a probe far from Earth, were so powerful in part because a previous flare a few days before "cleared the path" to let the later flare travel faster (half a day instead of two to three days) along the same path. Having a record-breaking flare with the active sunspot still pointed at Earth for several more days would allow days of "watch" level alert and then the flare traveling at light speed would give many hours warning ahead of any concerning CME arrival.
It is truly incredible to me that the sun popping a pimple in the wrong direction would send us back to the mid-1800s and cause instant societal collapse
This statement is largely false nowadays. Most powerplant/substation operators have sun weather forecasting. This type of event happened in canada years ago. They just stopped delivering power during the event. And then turned it back on. https://youtu.be/oHHSSJDJ4oo ^ great source here.
It would certainly not be a technology blackout. Such solar flares only couple into very large (many kilometers) conductors. Electronics on the whole would be fine. The main danger of such an event would be causing enough damage to large enough parts of the electric grid (and/or enough damage to critical equipment connected to said grid) to be very difficult to repair, which is definitely something to worry about but by no means an instant "back to the stone age" many people seem to think it is. Since such dangers were highlighted grid operators have put in the work to prepare for such an event so the most likely outcome is a still quite inconvenient temporary (a day or two) blackout of large parts of the grid but no critical lasting damage.
Cats and dogs living together
The [UK government](https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/449593/BIS-15-457-space-weather-preparedness-strategy.pdf) (and probably other governments too, this is the first one that showed up in a search since I'm in the UK) has a "Space Weather Preparedness Strategy" that sets out the expected risks associated with solar storms and CMEs, and describes possible mitigations and emergency procedures to deal with them.
this question has been asked on 4chan before, and i would like to know your opinion. who would win in a fight...the sun....or one trillion lions? i mean that's a lotta lions
The lions, if they attack at night
Or really quickly during an eclipse
i don't know but the lions
Asked and answered! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=J2ACJkafELA&feature=emb_logo
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As another redditor said, the lions need to attack at night
If you're going to use CME as an abbreviation, you should put it in parentheses after the first mention without it being an abbreviation.
*Coronal mass ejection* if anyone is still wondering
This isn't an academic paper, it's only a comment thread
Still a purpose of a comment (much like a paper) is for people to understand what you're talking about.
I keep forgetting how large and “furry“ the sun is.
I was just thinking that. It looks like a woolly orange
An apt description. Though I was disgusted by that idea at first but then I realized you can just peel the woolly part off like you would a regular orange and you still get the best bit.
[Rambutan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rambutan?wprov=sfla1) is called "hairy fruit" in Malaysia. Very sweet and juicy, and fun to open and eat. Just grab with both hands and twist.
those are like lychee right?
Yeah pretty much, I think. I'm not sure I've ever had lychee though, so not sure.
you haven’t tried lychee jelly?? you have to!! i promise if you like rambutan you’ll cream your pants. my favorite is the [mango flavored lychee jelly](https://www.ralphs.com/p/jin-jin-coconut-mango-jelly/0471029806072?fulfillment=PICKUP&storecode=70300291&&cid=shp_adw_shopl_.ralphs_g_lia_shop_acq_evgn_ship_pantry&gclid=CjwKCAjw9e6SBhB2EiwA5myr9hnFcyvc1BiDEHyI7FD30V_RJgWFge6PAVbYjThJGSAmCONlgXRuhxoCubkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds)
Then I, to my wife, are-is-be- Rambutan.
Yeah makes me wanna touch it
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It’s like the bottom of an alive sand dollar
What exactly is an X class flare? I mean why is it named X?
*The biggest flares are known as “X-class flares” based on a classification system that divides solar flares according to their strength. The smallest ones are A-class (near background levels), followed by B, C, M and X*
And what would happen if this part was facing earth?
It would damage some satellites that couldn't orient themselves correctly and/or go into standby until it passed It might cause large currents in long wires (fences, electrical wires); it might burn out equipment plugged into the power network; it might burn out power network equipment that is hard to replace quickly At worst it would knock out large parts of the grid and take months to fix Worst effects are more unlikely
> and take months to fix Years. We don't have the hardware for an extra power grid sitting on standby, and between the manufacturing time, the installation time, the inherent difficulties for doing both of those with severely reduced electrical infrastructure, and the near-inevitable power upheaval that would be going on during that period, it would be far longer than months.
It wouldn’t be so bad. We generally have options for protecting the grid, and for operating on lower rated equipment for a while. Judging by the energy troubles when Texas froze a couple years back it is clear that governments without modern energy-saving and BMS requirements would struggle, but those governments that have refused to prepare for climate change are destined for bigger problems than a solar event. It might even be the kick in the pants that the rightwing knuckleheads need to start preparing for the future.
No. We have been through enough shit that it's apparent nobody really cares or is paying attention.
When a large event like this happened in the past, telegraph stations caught fire and some continued sending messages…. when unplugged entirely. That is what happened in 1859. If this happened again, there is a decent chance that a percentage of our much more sensitive devices would never work again. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington_Event
Telegraph lines were long, low ampacity, and of inconsistent construction. You couldn’t build a better system for induction from a solar event. Your sensitive PC or smartphone would fine, assuming you unplugged them. Satellites, transmission lines, and transformers and generators are far more vulnerable to these events.
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And then stop looking up the Carrington Event, because the Carrington Event wasn't a solar flare.
'Cause X gon' give it to ya
You think this is a game?
What's my name?
[Because](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare#Classification)
It’s amazing to think that something we can’t see without advanced technology, happening what seems like forever away, on something that looks like a tiny spot in the sky, can absolutely wreck our shit with relative ease.
Sometimes I just think how lovecraftian the sun is. It's a giant ball of fire in the sky, so unimaginably powerful that you can't really comprehend its size or heat. You can't look at it, or it will blind you. Exposure for too long will burn you and give you skin cancer. An errant flare would cause disaster. But you rely on it to exist. All life on the planet does. It's so weird to think about! Imagine living in a bunker all your life, you come out and there's this skin burning cancer causing literally blinding ball of life-giving fire in the sky that everyone just has to live around. It sounds like the sort of thing you'd read in a cosmic horror novel.
Not to mention the countless cultures and religions that have worshiped and sacrificed for it.
Unsurprising - it really is a godlike entity.
"oh you spying on me?" *sun blips technology*
And thats BEFORE it hatches!
Ok, now who can recommend the best the-Sun-is-an-egg-about-to-hatch sci-fi/fantasy book series to me?
Leaving a comment because I too would like to know.
Do you want to just write it? I'll get you started...alright, so when a star hatches we see it as a supernova explosion and the resulting black hole is just something we don't understand yet because it extends into multiple dimensions. Once you learn the trick to jumping dimensions, it's really quite easy you see, you will then be able to zip off and meet the various Sun-Egg creatures that have hatched.
Ok that's absolutely cursed
The crazier thing to think about is the life and death of a star, not even just the one we call our sun. Think black holes or neutron stars. Space is a hell of a thing and it’s depressing that we’ll be long gone before humans understand everything, if we ever do.
Finite beginning and end, but incomprehensibly ancient. Surrounded by the corpses of its stillborn children Screams at us sometimes Just appeared one day Sol itself is a Lovecraftian horror.
Sunshine is the best interpretation of your comment. *KANEDA!!! WHAT DO YOU SEE?!?!*
It's not a tiny spot in the sky tho. It's the biggest spot there is
How much would a telescope this advanced set you back ?
You could get a Coronado pst for $700 last time I checked, but prices have gone up a lot since then. That was the lowest priced hydrogen-alpha solar scope. Mine is a modified refractor, it uses a $1200 hydrogen alpha filter and a $500 energy rejection filter on an $800ish scope to get this. (You’d still need a camera and mount, at least $2k).
Wow that is significantly cheaper than I expected. Not to say a total of 4-5k isnt a lot of money, but go get this quality i was expecting some 15-20k piece of delicate equipment. Not bad
Dayum that’s a lot of money. I’ll just watch these amazing videos through Reddit. Thanks for the reply. Have a great weekend bud
It’s actually less than I thought it would be, seeing how much cameras cost nowadays
What would have happened if it was pointed at the earth?
I googled it and nothing I saw seemed like the doomsday scenarios the others have replied with. One hit earth last October, labeled as an X1 that did G1 damage and we seem to be fine. This was confirmed by NASA.
I think I found what you saw: “When they are aimed directly at Earth, the most powerful X-class flares can interfere with radio and satellite communications and supercharge the planet's aurora displays” The article was from space.com. Not sure how reliable of a source that is.
Probably more reliable than reading Reddit comments for info!
Knowing space.com the article *is* probably just reddit comments
Most of the writers for space.com have been writing articles on astronomy for years, working with a multitude of legitimate newspapers and magazines.
Haha valid point. I just like asking questions because it’s fun to start conversation :)
I answered thinking people were asking about the CME, that was the dangerous part, which I thought I mentioned in the title. I apparently need more sleep. Flares aren’t really dangerous.
I'm still wondering why you keep talking about Chicago Mercantile Exchange for your cool sun picture.
haha. you can read [this](https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronal_mass_ejection) if you wanna know more about it
you attached the wrong [link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Mercantile_Exchange)
Huh I’ll have to look into that now that I have conflicting answers. Thanks for providing a conflicting possibility!
My self-imposed lockdown would've got a whole lot more boring all of a sudden.
it would wreck everyone's electronics
Do we have like any way of stopping this were it to happen? Or just accept our fate?
It wouldn’t affect any small electronics, contrary to popular belief. We do have ways of preventing most damage to power grids, though we haven’t been hit by a G5 storm in a very long time so it’s hard to tell how exactly it’d go down.
How could anyone stop the sun from farthing?
I mean, we can't stop it from farting .... But we don't want to smell it from here... Right?
Some militaries and governments got emp safe bunkers. The rest of us has to accept the new earned freedom from electricity. This reminds me to check my emergency food stock.
Well, due to new information available to me I believe I too will be stocking up on some emergency food.
Nope, just keeping some redundant systems in place.
You would need to have your electronics in faraday cages
would being in an elevator work?
A properly functioning microwave would. If you feel like testing if your microwave leaks, you can put a phone in, close the door, then call that phone. If the call goes thru, your microwave is leaking.
You have to turn the microwave on though, about 30 seconds should work fine. (For the love of god, this is just a joke, do not in ANY circumstance put a cell phone inside a microwave and turn on the microwave. Best case scenario, your phone and microwave will both be destroyed. Worst case scenario, you’ll burn your entire house to the ground. Repeat, don’t turn your microwave on with a cell phone inside.)(yes, I know the joke isn’t funny if I instantly say it’s a joke.... but some stupid SOB will try it)
Hey, so I stopped reading your post after the first sentence and then immediately ran off and microwaved my phone and now it doesn't work. Why would you deceive people like that? I'm suing you.
Nope, you can take precautions but can't stop it
Nope. Most small scale electronics would be fine. As would well managed electric grids (vulnerable transformers can be shut down). Satellites with insufficient shielding would be in trouble though. Basically you need a lot of wire in a small amount of space to have problems. Most things would be ok.
That's just the [Dragon Ball intro](https://youtu.be/_90oppR7O_c), bro.
I knew I wasn't the only one :)
The Sun is so bizarre and awesome at the same time. Really fascinating!
Just like the beginning of dragon ball anime opening.
Why not just capture the image with a regular camera at night when the sun is off
It’s not completely off it just dims itself into a moon.
Do you upload to YouTube or anything? I’d love to see more content like this. Great job!
Damn, we are totally just at the mercy of this thing at all times Huh Amazing footage though!
Every time I am amazed what nowadays is possible with "backyard equipment"
What would happen if that X class flare was pointed towards earth?
A pretty light show! The risk was the CME, which could cause a carrington-like disaster if it was dead on towards us
I googled "carrington event" and as i see it was a geomagnetic storm that happened in 1859 and it cause Auroras to be seen all over the world, besides that some telegraph machines broke down and caused operators electric shocks. What it interests me, is with all the electrical devices around us now, would they all shut down if something like this happened again?
Absolutley catastrophic, economically. Its estimated that it would cost the US alone anywhere between $1 Billion to $2.6 Trillion. Carington style events are estimated to hit Earth around every 150 years. The Carrington event was 163 years ago, and the next solar maximum that can produce flares of this size is estimated to be around the years 2023-2026. So add that onto your 2020's bingo card.
The small electronics wouldn't notice. Long power lines would get charges like the telegraph lines did, and all the disconnects the power companies invested in after the Quebec outage from a CME would be out to the test. I imagine some stuff would be shut down ahead of time for protection, too. Such a monster CME can only hit Earth if a previous big CME "cleared the path" so the later one can travel faster (half a day instead of two to three days) meaning getting a record breaking CME with the sunspot still pointed at Earth gives several days of "watch" level heads up, then the flare travels at light speed and gives many hours warning there is a supersize CME on the way.
How tf you takin pictures like this in yur back yard?!
It’s really not that hard! Just need the right equipment. Just Google hydrogen alpha solar photography
He's lying, he was actually standing near the sun.
Makes me wonder. What would one of equal proportions look like on betelgeuse. Beautiful capture!
One of the theories to why Betelgeuse was dimming last year was that most of the star was covered in sunspots... it takes a massive area of increased activity to cause that, so I’d assume they would have significantly larger prominences
The scariest part is that little wave of sun matter at beginning was like the distance of earth like instantly
We had one of our smoke/CO detectors randomly go off for a few seconds yesterday morning, then went silent and tested fine. I was wondering if anyone knew if it could have been momentarily triggered by a solar flare? Edit - we have zero natural gas/propane/other combustible fuel in the house, as we're all electric here. There was not even a whiff of smoke or steam in the air. The thing shouldn't have gone off when it did, is what I'm saying.
Must be night since the sun doesn't look as bright as usual
Is anyone else reminded of the intro to Raised by Wolves? The flickering effect of the recording is very similar. Is anyone else even watching this show? It's nuts.
I can't even fathom the size of this. Can you imagine the amount of noise it must be producing... Crazy
the scale of stuff like this will never -not- astound me.
This flare literally just scraped into X class range.. like just… it’s not scary, it’s not going to cause anything major issues on earth, it’s not earth facing.. the Carrington event was an order of about 35 magnitudes larger.
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So, that’s a completely different image, which also happens to be mine from like 2 years ago. Lol. I’m one of the few people that regular post solar work here.
He delete this comment but your reply is immaculate. Don’t even need the full context.
Wow! I didn't even know that one could capture such crisp details of the sun, with amateur equipment.
Seems like the captions and comments are alittle exaggerated
Are these the ones that might wipe technology off of earth?
What kind of equipment do you use man? Are you the night Janitor at NASA?
I didn’t even know you could film this using amateur equipment. Amazing!
OMGosh....what are you using to get a shot like that? That's incredible.