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NASA Warns of Potential "Huge Space Storm" In 2013
Low Ranked Craig writes "Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes 'from a deep slumber' sometime around 2013. In a new warning, NASA said the super storm could hit like 'a bolt of lightning' and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world's health, emergency services, and national security — unless precautions are taken. Scientists believe damage could extend to everyday items such as home computers, iPods, and sat navs. 'We know it is coming but we don't know how bad it is going to be,' said Dr. Richard Fisher, the director of NASA's Heliophysics division. 'I believe we're on the threshold of a new era in which space weather can be as influential in our daily lives as ordinary terrestrial weather.' Fisher concludes. 'We take this very seriously indeed.'"
If you RTFA, it's not a world ending event. It's just gonna mess up some transformers if they don't turn them off in time.
Disagree != mod troll.
Protip: If TFA is found on the "telegraph.co.uk" domain, it almost certainly represents the state of knowledge of someone who majored in "journalism", after surviving an editor, rather than the state of knowledge of the actual scientists involved with the question...
Also, my computer is pretty much a large steel cage, with the magnetic platters encased in another thick layer of metal, how vulnerable would a regular tower be?
Simultaneously plugged into a multi-thousand mile grid of copper electrical power wiring and miles of aluminum hardline for the cablemodem, not so good.
Unplugged in a box, excellent chance of survival.
Also, electrical fields have no direct effect on magnetic material, you can completely vaporize the electronic of a computer in a lightning strike and a cleanroom service can install new circuit boards and recover most/all of the data off the drive. Now, heat the platters above the curie temperature, like in a fire, and you're screwed.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Big transformers in the power grids will be the main victims.
OMG... Won't someone think of the Decepticons!?!
Now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure everything I just said is completely wrong.
Physicist here (not an astro-, but good enough for these purposes).
Solar activity generally occurs in cycles. As far as we know and have observed, these cycles are fairly regular and predictable in a "big-picture" sort of way.
Although I might not trust the weatherman's forecast for this Friday, I will trust his assertion that it's going to start getting cold around November.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose