A Doomsday Blog

We know that all good things must come to an end. What we don’t always know is how, when, and certainly why. This is definitely the case with the survival of mankind. It seems that everybody is always telling us what the threat of humanity is. We’ve got microwavable meals, cutting down rainforests, the zombie apocalypse, nuclear war, politics, infectious disease, super villains, global warming; basically, we’re done for.

The one daunting power far greater than Lex Luther and Mayan calendars is the cosmos. Asteroids penetrate atmospheres and comets collide with planets. Planets are ejected from orbit and orbital paths can change. Stars die, engulf planets, and even explode. Radiation bursts destroy planets as well as solar systems. Galaxies collide! The more we study the universe the more we realize its immense power and potential. We also recognize how filled with chaos the universe is and how much, but at the same time how little, of this chaos we actually understand. So much happens in the universe and so much of it is still unpredictable to us. The great power of the universe coupled with its chaos and our lack of understanding force a salience of mortality. The universe is beautiful but also kind of scary. The cosmos has the potential to produce awesome forces that threaten the very survival of mankind and our home, Earth.

While the death force of a gamma ray burst may render that of microwavable mac and cheese laughable, in all likeliness humanity will generate its own doom long before the cosmos does. As astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson has said, “ Our planet will remain in orbit around the Sun, along with its planetary brethren, long after Homo sapiens has become extinct by whatever cause.” The Earth will be here for a while, regardless of what we do. It’s a 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-ton iron ball that’s been orbiting the Sun for 4,550,000,000 years. It’s collided with another planet (how the moon was made), been blasted by radiation, and hit by more asteroids than you’ve had hot showers, and yet it’s still here in snug orbit around the Sun.

This blog is focussed on the forces of the cosmos that could bring catastrophic events to humanity all the while assuming that we are still on Earth when they happen. We will be looking at the death force things like asteroids, comets, solar storms, Planet X, The Big Rip theory, cosmic collisions, black holes, and the things that scare me most - electromagnetic pulses and gamma ray bursts.

Friday, February 14, 2014

Death By SOLAR STORM!


Here is a link to an episode of Cosmic Journeys called "Attack of the Sun". Its a 24 minute video all about stuff that the Sun shoots at us. They go into great detail about solar flares and coronal mass ejections while describing modern research on the subject.
Yellow Rum
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMUHkz5nx8g

The Sun follows an eleven year cycle that is currently in its solar max, the portion of the cycle when the Sun is most active and has the most solar storms. During a solar storm the Sun releases tides of electromagnetic radiation and coronal mass ejections. A coronal mass ejection, or CME, is essentially a large bubble of plasmic gas that is threaded with magnetic field lines. When CMEs reach Earth they release their energy and visibly create colorful auroras. As pretty and amicable as the auroras are, they are tied to the force of CMEs which can unleash static discharges that disrupt, or even destroy, out power grids. The Sun also releases solar flares, basically eruptions of supercharged protons, that can reach earth in minutes, reaping calamitous consequences.
Solar flares occur on the surface of the Sun and can last anywhere from minutes to hours. A large flare can release enough energy to power all of the U.S. for a million years. Solar flares typically occur in the most active regions of the Sun, such as sunspots, where the magnetic fields are strongest. A solar flare is generated by the magnetic fields within and around the Sun. When the field lines extend out of the Sun's surface, they can carry plasma with them. Stresses on the surface of the Sun can cause the solar flares to twist and make contact with their positive and negative poles. This causes a huge explosion that pulses out into space.
Flares are classified by their strength. An X1 class is at least ten times more energetic than an M1 class which is ten times more energetic than a C1 class, which in turn is ten times more energetic that a B1 class flare.
B and C class flares are not strong enough to effect Earth. M class flares are known to generate radio blackouts and radiation storms. The X class is the real oppugner. The most powerful flare every recorded was measured in 2003 during the last solar maximum. The flare was so powerful that it overloaded the sensor that measured it. NASA calculated it to be an X45, which means that it was 45 times more energetic than an X1. A flare of this magnitude can generate long lasting radiation storms that harm satellites and potentially give small radiation doses to airline passengers flying near the North or South Poles. These flares are known to create blackouts and global transmission issues.
This great potential is what inspires NASA to constantly monitor the Sun. Using their Heliophysics fleet of spacecraft, NASA nonstop looks at every side of the Sun through many wavelengths. This extensive coverage allows NASA to predict solar storms, allowing protection against the worst consequences of the Sun.
According to NASA, our power grids are now interconnected to the point that a large solar storm could generate failures that would cut power to 130 million people in the U.S. alone. This would have fiscal repercussions in the trillions of dollars and take years to fix. Communication would be cut off, international trade would slow, millions could die, and this blog will not be accessible. The last large solar storm that Earth experienced was in 1889 when a solar storm cut out all power to all of Quebec. Thirty years before that, a solar storm caused telegraph wires to short out all across the U.S. and Europe.
While we may have integrated electronics into our lives far more than in the day of the telegraph, the death force of a solar storm is most likely not strong enough to wipe out humanity. NASA tells us that the solar max that Sun is currently in is nothing to be afraid of and that their is no special risk associated with it.

Here is a link to a video that describes solar flares:
Solar Flares
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmDZhQAIeXM

This link will take you to a video made pre-2012 about the solar max and what that means for the sun:
Just the Beginning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_uBlDoecak

Here is a link to a video that describes the M class solar flare that hit us this year on the 27th of January. Skip to 2:20
Smooth Solar Sailing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8KHy3Df_Xw

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3 comments:

  1. BrianFebruary 27, 2014 at 4:08 PM

    4 points. Why do solar storms effect our power grid?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Jacob D. McNevinMarch 9, 2014 at 11:47 PM

    Here is a link to an article about the researchers who work to protect our power grids; there's also a cool video: http://www.space.com/21805-solar-storms-electrical-grids-research.html
    "There is always a small amount of natural electricity running through the ground. Under most circumstances, this electricity is harmless; however, a solar storm can exacerbate the currents underfoot, possible wreaking havoc on electrically linked systems around the world. When solar storms hit the Earth in a certain way, it can disrupt the Earth's magnetic field, allowing strong electric currents in the upper atmosphere to induce currents on the ground, BGS officials said."
    Essentially the solar flares induce high currents in the magnetosphere which in turn induce high currents in power lines. This can cause electric transformers and power stations to malfunction and even blow out. Since currents are greatest at high altitudes, there is more risk at high locations with long power lines and a poor conducting ground.
    Our power grid happens to operate near capacity which means that it would have a hard time handling the increase in electrical load from a solar superstorm. Our power lines would sag and maybe even snap. The entire continent would be susceptible to power outages. On top of this, magnetic fluctuations would interfere with radio signals and potentially cause satellite systems to collapse.
    While solar storms are scary, the only real threat that they bring to humanity is that of wiping out facebook and satellite television for a while. Even still, solar storms large enough to greatly affect Earth only happen every hundred or so years. While every hundred years electricity does become exponentially integrated into humanity, humanity's ability to protect itself against devastation increases as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. BrianMarch 19, 2014 at 6:41 PM

    upgraded to 5 points.

    ReplyDelete

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