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NASA Images Massive Solar Flare

Posted by Soulskill on from the i'll-be-in-my-bunker dept.

An anonymous reader writes: NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, has sent back pictures of a massive, X-class solar flare. The X-class flares are the strongest, and this one received an X2.7 rating. It wasn't pointed at us, and there was no notable harm done, but there was a brief radio blackout (and a burst of static) over the Pacific Ocean and western North America.

This flare follows news of a presentation (PDF) from the Space Weather Workshop that there is evidence for a phenomenon known as a "superflare", which can be up to a thousand times stronger than the flares we routinely see. Such behavior is seen in other stars, and may be expected from the Sun once every 10,000 years, on average.

42 comments

  1. I swear, I've heard this before somewhere. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
    That monthly changes in her circled orb,
    Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

    1. Re:I swear, I've heard this before somewhere. by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Surely we could find terrestrial evidence of such flares in the geological record, couldn't we?

    2. Re: I swear, I've heard this before somewhere. by O('_')O_Bush · · Score: 4, Funny

      We have found countless fossils of dinosaurs with burnt out blutooth headsets and seen the patterns of chaos when said dinosaurs lost their nightly Fox news feed.

      I kid. Doing some very light reading, apparently no evidence has been found that the Sun is the kind of star to produce a super flare, and the presence of one would probably be quite devastating (1000x sun luminosity baking the earth for a few hours with no ozone layer to protect us). Definitely not something that happens in the solar system every 10k years.

      --
      while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
    3. Re:I swear, I've heard this before somewhere. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, historically, there is the Carrington event to give us a pattern to find, but some of the residue might be a bit tricky to identify, there are things other than solar flares that might have a similar effect, including unrelated cosmic ray events.

      And remember, a flare that doesn't hit the Earth might well occur. Then if there is a record, where might it be? Who knows!

    4. Re: I swear, I've heard this before somewhere. by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 1

      Yes, this story seems to me to be an example of "climate reporting" by the media. It represents a view of astronomy that matches their understanding of climate science.

    5. Re:I swear, I've heard this before somewhere. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
      That monthly changes in her circled orb,
      Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

      I was watching the news when the change came, like a flicker of motion at the corner of my eye. I turned toward the balcony window. Whatever it was, I was too late to catch it.

      The moon was very bright tonight.
      [...] Now its light was brain-searing, lunatic.
      [...] I blinked, and the moon left an afterimage on my retinae. It was that bright.
      [...] A million people must be watching the moon right now, and wondering, like me.
      [...] There must be some simple, obvious explanation

      ~From the first bits of Larry Niven's Inconstant Moon, 1972 Hugo for best short story.

  2. Great Balls of Fire by antiperimetaparalogo · · Score: 1

    offtopic

    --
    Antisthenes: "Wisdom begins by examining the words/names." - excuse my English, i am (slightly...) better with my Greek!
  3. Every 10,000 years? by nbauman · · Score: 2

    So every 10,000 years, a superflare destroys human civilization?

    1. Re:Every 10,000 years? by TWX · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Probably not complete destruction, yet. We're only now at a point where we're so dependent on techology that would be affected by such a flare that it could be devastating, and even then, only if we're so completely unprepared as to have nothing shielded at all.

      Perhaps that's one of the few good things to come out of the Cold War, we were afraid enough of EMP from nuclear weapons that there's a lot of things that are hardened or semi-hardened that might survive a hit. Plus there's a decent chance that we wouldn't be directly struck anyway.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    2. Re:Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nope,

      Human civilization destroys itself before it happens

    3. Re:Every 10,000 years? by danlip · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't think a super-flare would have much effect on a pre-electronic civilization. It might start a new religion because of super-intense auroras.

    4. Re:Every 10,000 years? by nbauman · · Score: 1

      Good thing I saved my vacuum tubes.

    5. Re:Every 10,000 years? by jellomizer · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The fear of the civilization ending EMP is greatly over exaggerated.
      Sure it could be a major problem. However it won't lead to the dystopian future.

      Because we humans seem to know how the technology we made works. So we can rebuild it. Also there will not 100% destruction. I have seen equiptment struck by lightning. And suffered only partial failures. (A network rack where the Upper ports may not work.).

      In short such an event would knock mankind back 2 months.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    6. Re:Every 10,000 years? by TWX · · Score: 2

      Thing is, we don't know how bad the short-term would be, and how that would affect the long term. Look at areas that have suffered natural disasters like hurricanes, where the people suffered GREATLY because everything they were dependent on stopped working.

      If that happened on a continent-wide or global scale, I think we're screwed.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    7. Re:Every 10,000 years? by TWX · · Score: 1

      In all honesty, fully mechanical diesel trucks would be the thing. A diesel engine doesn't require any electricity to operate at all once it's started, and one could mount an air tank, air pump, and pneumatic starter to such a truck to be able to start it without even a battery. Granted, without a functioning alternator or generator the lights might not work, but for the short-term that wouldn't really be that big of a problem.

      I think the biggest danger would be a lack of water to urban areas, or a lack of ability to manage the water resources available. Without water cities would die.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    8. Re:Every 10,000 years? by whoever57 · · Score: 1

      Petrol engines worked for decades without any active electronics. My car (built in '57) has either zero or perhaps one semiconductor devices (quench diode in the fuel pump). It has plenty of electro-mechanical devices, but I doubt that these would be affected by a flare. It has a starter, but can be hand-cranked to start.

      --
      The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
    9. Re:Every 10,000 years? by TWX · · Score: 1

      True, but points distributors gave way to electronic distributors in the sixties and early seventies. Cummins fully mechanical diesel engines with mechanical injection pumps (ie, 6BT engines with twelve valves, versus the 24 valve versions that followed) were installed into Dodge trucks from 1989 to 1998. I wouldn't be surprised if other diesel manufacturers also continued to use fully mechanical setups until that era.

      I've got a couple of carbureted vehicles that could be relatively easily swapped from electronic distributors and ignition to points, but they wouldn't run right out of the box. There's a '72 Barracuda in the family that's still points, and once cranked over would work without issues, but anything modern that runs on gasoline would be dead in the water if its electronics fried. No way to run a multiport fuel injected car without the computer. There are so few carbureted vehicles left compared to EFI that it's almost not worth considering.

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    10. Re:Every 10,000 years? by Anonymice · · Score: 1

      We may know how all of it works, but how long would it take us to rebuild the infrastructure used to build it? Good look building electronics from scratch with a hammer & wrench.

    11. Re:Every 10,000 years? by BobSutan · · Score: 1

      Case in point, had the flare/CME that hit Earth in the 1800s hit today, it would have likely wiped out half the world's electrical grid one moment. It would likely take several years at a minimum to restore power to the continental US, let alone the rest of the hemisphere, and millions would die due to lack of food, clean water, healthcare, and heating or cooling (depending on which season it were to occur).

      People today are highly susceptible to a mass dying event due to just-in-time delivery of foodstuffs, electricity required for medical care, etc. And that's for healthy adults. The infirm and elderly would be even more at risk due to their fragile health and requirement for complicated medical care that would be impossible without electricity.

      --
      "On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
    12. Re:Every 10,000 years? by BobSutan · · Score: 1

      Yes and no. It takes roughly a year to build and ship the big transformers power plants use. These things aren't something you can just whip together. If your entire grid shits the bed and gets fried, that's only a handful of power stations for the entire nation, and that's not taking into account transportation problems getting them out to the plants that need them. Should the grid ever get fried by something like this super flare, you're looking at at least 1 year of no power for the entire hemisphere aside from the couple of power stations right next to a generating source (eg Hoover).

      --
      "On a scale from 1 to 10, people are stupid"
    13. Re:Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It probably wouldn't be as bad as some are suggesting but in the worst case if a major flare hit us it would be worse than a 2 month hickup. First off this isn't an EMP, this is an EM STORM. EMPs are over in a few seconds, solar flares last hours. The biggest issue would be the electric grid, if utilities didn't respond quickly the storm could destroy transformers across the country taking years to completely replace. Secondly many electronics that weren't shut down/disconnected would be damaged/destroyed. While many of those devices are non-critical (tvs, tablets, etc) some are very important for the the economy (bank, investment & government computers) and livelihood (gas, water, septic etc computers).

    14. Re:Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      we were afraid enough of EMP from nuclear weapons that there's a lot of things that are hardened or semi-hardened that might survive a hit

      This is pretty much of zero relevance to a geomagnetic storm. The timescales are completely different, with EMP from nuclear weapon involving very fast changes in fields that will induce currents and voltages in very small wires and electronics. The effects of geomagnetic storms, even the largest we've ever seen, is over minutes and hours. The rate change is just too small to induce any sort of damaging current or voltage in the size of a house or smaller (unless you wrap your house in hundreds of turns of wire). The issue is for very large circuits over very large areas, that can accumulate enough A*dB/dt or are sensitive to differences in ground potential across large distances. Even then, it is not a matter of EMP hardening, but having a simple circuit breaker... which in the past has worked, like in 89 when the power went out during the storm but was restored afterwards by resetting the breakers essentially.

    15. Re:Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Case in point, had the flare/CME that hit Earth in the 1800s hit today, it would have likely wiped out half the world's electrical grid one moment.

      Only if by "one moment" you mean over several hours, and only then if circuit breakers didn't work like they are supposed to and did in 1989 in Quebec. Otherwise, power systems would come back on within a day or two of the event.

    16. Re:Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good look building electronics from scratch with a hammer & wrench.

      I've built a metal lathe using hand tools. With a lathe, you can build quite a bit of other tooling. With a bit of knowledge and scrap materials, you can quite quickly exceed what was available before the 20th century, especially if doing so for a day job and not just a hobby.

    17. Re:Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good look building electronics from scratch with a hammer & wrench.

      What do you think we built them out of in the first half of the 20th century? All the research is done, most of it has been printed out on dead trees, and most of the physical plant still exists either on paper or in surplus stores/junkyards. A Carrington-style event would suck, but would probably set us back no more than a decade or two, tops.

    18. Re: Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      but hey, we worked so hard to scare the plebs into submission. dont play so honest !

    19. Re:Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I wouldn't compare the Carrington event to the Quebec storm. I think Quebec was estimated to be an X28 or so, Carrington was at least an X40 and probably much higher. We have observed flares up to X45 and there is some suggestion that Z class flares are possible.

    20. Re: Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      we cannot simply manage the wheat stores by the military. ayn rands corpse would deny this to us.

    21. Re: Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      if you subscribe to the propaganda orgs of saudi aramco, you will believe this shit. the color of wahabism is GREEN.

      they worked hard against any competitor of OIL.

    22. Re:Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Z class flares are possible.

      There is no such thing. The scale stops at X. Each letter is a factor of ten larger than the previous, going A, B, C, M, and X, and the numbers are linear 1-10. If another letter were to be added, anything over X10 would have already been using it. And an X40 is 40% stronger x-ray emission than an X28, but the x-ray strength is the wrong thing to be using when discussing the impact of a geomagnetic storm, nor does it change the time scale of events.

    23. Re:Every 10,000 years? by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

      Cummins fully mechanical diesel engines with mechanical injection pumps (ie, 6BT engines with twelve valves, versus the 24 valve versions that followed) were installed into Dodge trucks from 1989 to 1998.

      Ford used mechanical injection up until 1994. Chevy, not sure. Someplace around the same time. Unfortunately both used the same garbage Standyne DB-2 pump, it's nowhere near the same ballpark as the Bosch Jetronic used on the Dodges. And on those, only the relatively late-model trucks (1994-1998) in fact have an injection pump worth half a crap. Post-apocalypse, if you can't score a unimog, or a Jeep with an OM617 swap, you really want the Dodge.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    24. Re:Every 10,000 years? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We are also overdue for a Geomagnetic reversal and when that happens it will be very weak and chaotic, then if there is a big solar flare pointed this way at the same time we are in a lot of trouble, particularly if you are under one of the multiple poles that momentarily form during the transition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal

    25. Re:Every 10,000 years? by Cyberax · · Score: 1

      Nuclear weapon EMP is greatly exaggerated.

      A rule of thumb is, if your devices are affected by an EMP of a nuclear explosion and you're not inside a bunker/tank/whatever then you shouldn't worry about it. Because you're dead.

      Besides, even the largest solar flares won't produce much magnetic flux to affect anything less than grid-size. Remember, flares themselves do not produce magnetic field themselves, they affect the Earth's geomagnetic field instead.

    26. Re:Every 10,000 years? by delt0r · · Score: 1

      Flares don't cause EMP. They cause quite slowly moving magnetic fields on the scale of continents. So right now about the *only* it would affect is the power grid. And then only grids that haven't bothered to check their breakers.

      --
      If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
  4. This is their job. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not lobbying for a piece of the global warming pie like sharks at a kill site.

  5. NASA Images Massive Solar Flare by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From 2000 in Harvard Astronomy Journal
    Abstract
    Stellar flares with 102-107 times more energy than the largest solar flare have recently been detected from nine normal F and G main-sequence stars by Schaefer, King, and Deliyannis. These superflares have durations of hours to days and are visible from at least X-ray to optical frequencies. The absence of world-spanning aurorae in historical records and of anomalous extinctions in the geological record indicates that our Sun likely does not suffer superflares. In seeking to explain this new phenomenon, we are struck by its similarity to large stellar flares on RS Canum Venaticorum binary systems, which are caused by magnetic reconnection events associated with the tangling of magnetic fields between the two stars. The superflare stars are certainly not of this class, although we propose a similar flare mechanism. That is, superflares are caused by magnetic reconnection between fields of the primary star and a close-in Jovian planet. Thus, by invoking only known planetary properties and reconnection scenarios, we can explain the energies, durations, and spectra of superflares as well as explain why our Sun does not have such events.

  6. sounds by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hot

  7. Am I the only who who always reads NASA as NSA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whenever I read a NASA headline my thoughts are usually along the lines of, "NSA images massive solar flare. Wait, what? Oh NASA."

    1. Re:Am I the only who who always reads NASA as NSA? by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 2

      A sufficiently large solar flare would be the cure for the NSA.

  8. That's a relief by nbauman · · Score: 1

    The absence of world-spanning aurorae in historical records and of anomalous extinctions in the geological record indicates that our Sun likely does not suffer superflares.

    Now what do I do with the 30 years worth of survival food bars in my fallout shelter?

  9. Re: Am I the only who who always reads NASA as NSA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    i am afraid to say their stuff would be rebuilt at highest priority.

    also, a massive nuke would be required for the u.s. think of the tsar bomb. little norkie ones dont suffice.

  10. The Number List by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, have your child already had the number list from the time capsule of their school's 50 year anniversary?