6 ms·

'Sunspot archipelago' 15 times wider than Earth could soon bombard us

58 points by alex_young 3y ago

wkat4242 3y ago
It doesn't just cause radio blackouts as they say in the article. For us hams it's actually great because the charged atmosphere acts like a mirror and we can bounce signals all over the earth. But for satellites this is really bad news.
- senectus1 3y ago
  I wonder what the insurance policy on starlink satellites looks like.
  - pantulis 3y ago
    Hint: not cheap.
  - lnsru 3y ago
    Looks like it’s not unique case at least. The space infrastructure insurance has history of decades: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_insurance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_insurance
  - RA2lover 3y ago
    They already lost a few dozen satellites in a previous incident in february 2022. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022SW003193 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...
    - wkat4242 3y ago
      I doubt they'd insure them for this kind of mishap. They'll just launch new ones. They probably do have third party insurance though for debris hitting earth I guess.
gerikson 3y ago
That's some impressive artillery that archipelago has.
isoprophlex 3y ago
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle_25 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle_25 Relevant article about the current solar cycle, which nears its maximum and is unusually intense, apparently.
- codebolt 3y ago
  Will be interesting to see the effect on global temperatures when this SC is finished, especially if we get a prolonged quiet period afterwards. Might provide a proverbial cold shower for climate scientists.
  - BurningPenguin 3y ago
    > Might provide a proverbial cold shower for climate scientists. Why?
    - Kye 3y ago
      Probably under the mistaken impression climate scientists don't know about solar cycles.
      - codebolt 3y ago
        Under the impression that a lot of climate scientists are quick to disregard the effect variations in solar activity has on climate. To be clear, I'm not denying the effects of CO2, but it still seems possible that the role of CO2 has been exaggerated to some extent. The rise in global temperatures in the past century has coincided with increases in both CO2 and solar activity. And it's probably not a coincidence that last time we had a long period with a quiet sun (the Maunder minimum) was also a very cold period here on earth.
        GeoAtreides 3y ago
        The rise in global temperature does not coincide with solar activity: 1) Temperature vs Solar irradiance: https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/189/graphic-temperature-vs-solar-activity/ https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/189/graphic-tempe... 2) Temperature vs Sun activity: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/solact.html http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/solact.htm... 3) Number of sunspots over the year: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/couldnt-sun-be-cause-global-warming https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/couldnt-sun... Not sure why people think scientists would miss obvious things. If a non-specialist can think of a probable objection, chances are the specialist in that field has already study that objection in their intro classes.
avh3 3y ago
If want to check some sunspot images interactively, you can visit helioviewer.org From the left sidebar menu, select: Observatory: SDO Instrument: HMI Measurement: Continuum You can play around with the dates on top to see it move to the center of the sun (almost there!)
jsmcgd 3y ago
This is alarming. Does anyone know what the current state of space weather protection/mitigation is for electricity grids in the west? IIRC in 2012 the Earth missed a giant CME by one week, and had it hit Earth there would have been 80% casualties in the US (according to a US government committee), due to the fallout of failing electrical transformers. I'm not aware that this issue has been rectified - probably due to the magnitude of the task. Edit: This suggests the issue is being addressed but not to what extent: https://www.space.com/space-weather-impacts-electric-grid-preparations https://www.space.com/space-weather-impacts-electric-grid-pr...
- dmead 3y ago
  It's not like predicting the weather, if that's what you're asking. The solar observatories watch the sun constantly, so we see when elections occur, but there is little to no warning before they happen.
- valiant-comma 3y ago
  “IIRC in 2012 the Earth missed a giant CME by one week, and had it hit Earth there would have been 80% casualties in the US...” By casualties do you mean injuries/deaths (to people)? Do you have a source? From what I could find, it would be really bad for infrastructure, but not something that would outright kill or injure most of the population.
  - sjducb 3y ago
    The deaths come from lack of food and clean drinking water, caused by damage to infrastructure. 80% sounds too high and arbitrary tho.
jen729w 3y ago
This sort of thing has been weighing on my mind of late. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that this is why the stars aren’t full of spaceships. And I’m an optimist. But bear with me. We are at the point where we, as a society/species, are utterly dependent on technology. I live in the centre of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and if the power went out tomorrow, I’m not sure how long the food supplies would last. Because when I say power, I mean all the power, everywhere, forever. This is what happens if a ginormous solar storm hits us for more than a few minutes. Everything is gone forever. All transformers are blown. All electronics are fried. All satellites are gone. All terrestrial communications is gone. People can’t start engines. We can’t pump petrol. We can’t pump water. And crucially, we can’t fix anything. Because without transformers, nobody knows how to build new transformers. So we’ve built this society that can’t function without these things. I mean we got a bad flu and people lost their shit looting toilet paper. Imagine what happens when there’s no power. If your family is more than 200 miles away you never, ever see them again. This only has to happen at some point in the next 200 years and humanity is back in the Victorian era. Except we all kill each other and we’ve lost all the basic skills, so it’s worse than that. And we’re not special. We’re just a bunch of genes on an ordinary planet. I don’t see why this wouldn’t happen to every species everywhere. Anyway. Speculation of course. But if I was a cosmic gambler, I’d go all-in on this sort of thing. It just seems obvious.
- vardump 3y ago
  "... All transformers are blown. ..." Sure, that's possible. Long powerlines are affected. "... All electronics are fried." What? All? How could that happen due to solar activity? My guess is that even the worst event would leave a ton of working electronics. I don't think mostly anything happens to our cars or laptops, for example.
  - claytongulick 3y ago
    It depends on the severity of the event and how the electronics are designed. Any time you have a magnetic field cross a conductor you induce a voltage. The concern is that small electronics have very sensitive components that operate at low voltages. If there's a voltage spike generated on an internal bus, it could damage components.
MaximilianEmel 3y ago
What's the premier service for tracking these sort of events? Where can I find out the likelihood of getting "hit", and other such projections?
- sjducb 3y ago
  https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com/ https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com/ It reports all CMEs. You’ll have to do some parsing to work out if we’re going to get hit. Thinking about it this might be a good saas project.

58 points by alex_young 3y ago

It doesn't just cause radio blackouts as they say in the article. For us hams it's actually great because the charged atmosphere acts like a mirror and we can bounce signals all over the earth. But for satellites this is really bad news.

senectus1 3y ago
I wonder what the insurance policy on starlink satellites looks like.
- pantulis 3y ago
  Hint: not cheap.
- lnsru 3y ago
  Looks like it’s not unique case at least. The space infrastructure insurance has history of decades: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_insurance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_insurance
- RA2lover 3y ago
  They already lost a few dozen satellites in a previous incident in february 2022. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2022SW003193 https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...
  - wkat4242 3y ago
    I doubt they'd insure them for this kind of mishap. They'll just launch new ones. They probably do have third party insurance though for debris hitting earth I guess.

gerikson 3y ago

That's some impressive artillery that archipelago has.

isoprophlex 3y ago

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle_25 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_cycle_25 Relevant article about the current solar cycle, which nears its maximum and is unusually intense, apparently.

codebolt 3y ago
Will be interesting to see the effect on global temperatures when this SC is finished, especially if we get a prolonged quiet period afterwards. Might provide a proverbial cold shower for climate scientists.
- BurningPenguin 3y ago
  > Might provide a proverbial cold shower for climate scientists. Why?
  - Kye 3y ago
    Probably under the mistaken impression climate scientists don't know about solar cycles.
    - codebolt 3y ago
      Under the impression that a lot of climate scientists are quick to disregard the effect variations in solar activity has on climate. To be clear, I'm not denying the effects of CO2, but it still seems possible that the role of CO2 has been exaggerated to some extent. The rise in global temperatures in the past century has coincided with increases in both CO2 and solar activity. And it's probably not a coincidence that last time we had a long period with a quiet sun (the Maunder minimum) was also a very cold period here on earth.
      - GeoAtreides 3y ago
        The rise in global temperature does not coincide with solar activity: 1) Temperature vs Solar irradiance: https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/189/graphic-temperature-vs-solar-activity/ https://climate.nasa.gov/climate_resources/189/graphic-tempe... 2) Temperature vs Sun activity: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/solact.html http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/solact.htm... 3) Number of sunspots over the year: https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/couldnt-sun-be-cause-global-warming https://www.climate.gov/news-features/climate-qa/couldnt-sun... Not sure why people think scientists would miss obvious things. If a non-specialist can think of a probable objection, chances are the specialist in that field has already study that objection in their intro classes.

avh3 3y ago

If want to check some sunspot images interactively, you can visit helioviewer.org From the left sidebar menu, select: Observatory: SDO Instrument: HMI Measurement: Continuum You can play around with the dates on top to see it move to the center of the sun (almost there!)

jsmcgd 3y ago

This is alarming. Does anyone know what the current state of space weather protection/mitigation is for electricity grids in the west? IIRC in 2012 the Earth missed a giant CME by one week, and had it hit Earth there would have been 80% casualties in the US (according to a US government committee), due to the fallout of failing electrical transformers. I'm not aware that this issue has been rectified - probably due to the magnitude of the task. Edit: This suggests the issue is being addressed but not to what extent: https://www.space.com/space-weather-impacts-electric-grid-preparations https://www.space.com/space-weather-impacts-electric-grid-pr...

dmead 3y ago
It's not like predicting the weather, if that's what you're asking. The solar observatories watch the sun constantly, so we see when elections occur, but there is little to no warning before they happen.
valiant-comma 3y ago
“IIRC in 2012 the Earth missed a giant CME by one week, and had it hit Earth there would have been 80% casualties in the US...” By casualties do you mean injuries/deaths (to people)? Do you have a source? From what I could find, it would be really bad for infrastructure, but not something that would outright kill or injure most of the population.
- sjducb 3y ago
  The deaths come from lack of food and clean drinking water, caused by damage to infrastructure. 80% sounds too high and arbitrary tho.

jen729w 3y ago

This sort of thing has been weighing on my mind of late. The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that this is why the stars aren’t full of spaceships. And I’m an optimist. But bear with me. We are at the point where we, as a society/species, are utterly dependent on technology. I live in the centre of Canberra, the capital of Australia, and if the power went out tomorrow, I’m not sure how long the food supplies would last. Because when I say power, I mean all the power, everywhere, forever. This is what happens if a ginormous solar storm hits us for more than a few minutes. Everything is gone forever. All transformers are blown. All electronics are fried. All satellites are gone. All terrestrial communications is gone. People can’t start engines. We can’t pump petrol. We can’t pump water. And crucially, we can’t fix anything. Because without transformers, nobody knows how to build new transformers. So we’ve built this society that can’t function without these things. I mean we got a bad flu and people lost their shit looting toilet paper. Imagine what happens when there’s no power. If your family is more than 200 miles away you never, ever see them again. This only has to happen at some point in the next 200 years and humanity is back in the Victorian era. Except we all kill each other and we’ve lost all the basic skills, so it’s worse than that. And we’re not special. We’re just a bunch of genes on an ordinary planet. I don’t see why this wouldn’t happen to every species everywhere. Anyway. Speculation of course. But if I was a cosmic gambler, I’d go all-in on this sort of thing. It just seems obvious.

vardump 3y ago
"... All transformers are blown. ..." Sure, that's possible. Long powerlines are affected. "... All electronics are fried." What? All? How could that happen due to solar activity? My guess is that even the worst event would leave a ton of working electronics. I don't think mostly anything happens to our cars or laptops, for example.
- claytongulick 3y ago
  It depends on the severity of the event and how the electronics are designed. Any time you have a magnetic field cross a conductor you induce a voltage. The concern is that small electronics have very sensitive components that operate at low voltages. If there's a voltage spike generated on an internal bus, it could damage components.

MaximilianEmel 3y ago

What's the premier service for tracking these sort of events? Where can I find out the likelihood of getting "hit", and other such projections?

sjducb 3y ago
https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com/ https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com/ It reports all CMEs. You’ll have to do some parsing to work out if we’re going to get hit. Thinking about it this might be a good saas project.