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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.

7 of 42 comments (clear)

  1. 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 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.

    3. 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.
    4. 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.
  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.

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    while(1) attack(People.Sandy);
  3. 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.