5 ms·

I wonder how/IF this will cause anything to spike solar flares? that's what's scary to me - all it takes is one big burst and bye bye to our tech....

ceejayoz 5y ago
A dwarf planet wandering around Saturn's orbit isn't gonna do very much to the Sun.
_Microft 5y ago
No, no need to worry. Coronal mass ejections causing geomagnetic storms are really something to worry about but this thing is just a piece of rock flying around the Sun at very far distances (from our point of view). It is coming no closer than eleven astronomical units to Sun (1 AU is the mean distance of Earth to Sun).
- orliesaurus 5y ago
  Yeah I totally misunderstood the distances - my bad.
  - _Microft 5y ago
    There is a website that visualizes the distances in the solar system at the scale of 1 pixel to the diameter of Moon. In the lower right corner there is a symbol with a "C" and some lines around it that makes you automatically travel at the speed of light. Start the journey, put it on an extra screen if you have one and see nothing happen for most of the time ;) The current distance from Sun is shown in the bottom center and you can change units in the menu attached to it. "Astronomical units" or "light minutes" might be the most useful, kilometers or miles if you just want to be blown away by the order of magnitude. https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.... I also submitted it for discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27573172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27573172 Edit: fixed the scale, it's 1px:diameter of Moon, not 1px:distance Earth-Moon as I initially wrote.
messe 5y ago
I’m not seeing the relation other than it’s also in space (so is the earth and everything on it by the way). Why would this do anything to spike solar flares? It’s a lump of rock and ice 130km across, further out than Saturn. What possible mechanism do you think there is that would cause that to occur?
- orliesaurus 5y ago
  @messe guess you're right - I'll take the downvotes...
  - thechao 5y ago
    You voiced your comment as more speculative rather than as a question. Please don’t stop asking questions!
    - orliesaurus 5y ago
      Ty!
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > It’s a lump of rock and ice 130km across That's it? I was hoping for something at least the size of Texas...
  - messe 5y ago
    It’s almost certainly bigger than an olympic swimming pool, and definitely larger than an American football field.
hownottowrite 5y ago
It won’t do anything. Also, Carrington class events are very rare. You should worry more about space junk crashing into important things and even then it’s not much of a worry. https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/likelihood_of_space https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/likelihood...
- EarthLaunch 5y ago
  > The analysis shows that ‘severe’ magnetic storms occurred in 42 out of the last 150 years, and ‘great’ super-storms occurred in 6 years out of 150 That seems extremely imminent, like in my lifetime. How many of these events would shut down tech for months or years? Are those odds worth risking civilization over?
  - 8note 5y ago
    As far as space weather goes, I remember the forecast being severe all through September while I was doing magnetic surveying in northern Sask. Sever might not be so dangerous
  - hownottowrite 5y ago
    How many? Like zero. Big storms happen all the time. They’ll knock out a few power stations or shake up GPS and communications. The Carrington level events are far more rare. We had a near miss in 2012. That would’ve been very exciting.

ceejayoz 5y ago

A dwarf planet wandering around Saturn's orbit isn't gonna do very much to the Sun.

_Microft 5y ago

No, no need to worry. Coronal mass ejections causing geomagnetic storms are really something to worry about but this thing is just a piece of rock flying around the Sun at very far distances (from our point of view). It is coming no closer than eleven astronomical units to Sun (1 AU is the mean distance of Earth to Sun).

orliesaurus 5y ago
Yeah I totally misunderstood the distances - my bad.
- _Microft 5y ago
  There is a website that visualizes the distances in the solar system at the scale of 1 pixel to the diameter of Moon. In the lower right corner there is a symbol with a "C" and some lines around it that makes you automatically travel at the speed of light. Start the journey, put it on an extra screen if you have one and see nothing happen for most of the time ;) The current distance from Sun is shown in the bottom center and you can change units in the menu attached to it. "Astronomical units" or "light minutes" might be the most useful, kilometers or miles if you just want to be blown away by the order of magnitude. https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.html https://joshworth.com/dev/pixelspace/pixelspace_solarsystem.... I also submitted it for discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27573172 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27573172 Edit: fixed the scale, it's 1px:diameter of Moon, not 1px:distance Earth-Moon as I initially wrote.

messe 5y ago

I’m not seeing the relation other than it’s also in space (so is the earth and everything on it by the way). Why would this do anything to spike solar flares? It’s a lump of rock and ice 130km across, further out than Saturn. What possible mechanism do you think there is that would cause that to occur?

orliesaurus 5y ago
@messe guess you're right - I'll take the downvotes...
- thechao 5y ago
  You voiced your comment as more speculative rather than as a question. Please don’t stop asking questions!
  - orliesaurus 5y ago
    Ty!
DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> It’s a lump of rock and ice 130km across That's it? I was hoping for something at least the size of Texas...
- messe 5y ago
  It’s almost certainly bigger than an olympic swimming pool, and definitely larger than an American football field.

hownottowrite 5y ago

It won’t do anything. Also, Carrington class events are very rare. You should worry more about space junk crashing into important things and even then it’s not much of a worry. https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/likelihood_of_space https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/likelihood...

EarthLaunch 5y ago
> The analysis shows that ‘severe’ magnetic storms occurred in 42 out of the last 150 years, and ‘great’ super-storms occurred in 6 years out of 150 That seems extremely imminent, like in my lifetime. How many of these events would shut down tech for months or years? Are those odds worth risking civilization over?
- 8note 5y ago
  As far as space weather goes, I remember the forecast being severe all through September while I was doing magnetic surveying in northern Sask. Sever might not be so dangerous
- hownottowrite 5y ago
  How many? Like zero. Big storms happen all the time. They’ll knock out a few power stations or shake up GPS and communications. The Carrington level events are far more rare. We had a near miss in 2012. That would’ve been very exciting.