Althouse: "A Massive Explosion on the Sun, With the Earth Shown at Scale..."

September 12, 2012

"A Massive Explosion on the Sun, With the Earth Shown at Scale..."

And scroll down for a second great picture and a video.

19 comments:

David said...: Starry Night indeed!; 9/12/12, 12:38 PM
BarryD said...: Don't

FUCK

with

Wendy

Testaburger!; 9/12/12, 12:44 PM
Methadras said...: I blame Bush for this.; 9/12/12, 1:04 PM
Rusty said...: Yeah.
And we're causing global warming.; 9/12/12, 1:08 PM
edutcher said...: Ho-ly!

And they talk about a bad moon a-risin'.; 9/12/12, 1:10 PM
bagoh20 said...: Now what was it you thought was so damned important in the scheme of things, you little speck of dust on a marble next to that bonfire?; 9/12/12, 1:42 PM
Roman said...: I hope it happened at night...wouldn't want to be in the path of that.; 9/12/12, 2:02 PM
Larry J said...: Let's just hope another Carrington level event doesn't happen anytime soon. The damage would be widespread and long lasting.; 9/12/12, 2:06 PM
The Drill SGT said...: If it had happened facing us, what are the EMP impacts?; 9/12/12, 2:19 PM
Larry J said...: Depends on the strength of the flare. Weaker ones just cause some pretty lights. Stronger ones can disrupt satellite and landline communications and possibly damage electrical circuits. A Carrington level event would be very, very bad with some estimates saying it would take down the nation's power grid. Basically, we'd be severely screwed.; 9/12/12, 2:24 PM
Gene said...: I recently read that if the radiation from a massive solar flare hit earth it would knock out thousands of large transformers. These aren't the kind anyone keeps on a shelf for use as needed. These are the kind for which you place an order and then wait up to two years for delivery. In the meantime, affected areas would simply not have electrical power--nothing to run the pumps at gas stations or ATMs, nothing to run furnaces, refrigerators or any electrical appliance.

It isn't as if we would be knocked merely back into Civil War times either. They knew how to live without electricity and would be fully prepared (like the Amish today). The cities would start erupting in just a couple of days as people realized the couldn't buy food or perhaps even find water to drink.

It isn't as if people could just move to the country and live off the land either. There aren't enough deer in the woods or fish in the streams to feed our huge population today.

There would be riots, roving bands, burning cities and a lot of people would die before they got the lights back on.; 9/12/12, 3:26 PM
PackerBronco said...: Wow ...

it almost looks as bad as that time when I put too much lighter fluid over the coals in my grill.; 9/12/12, 3:37 PM
Larry J said...: National Geographic has a pretty good article about the potential effects of a massive solar storm. Such storms are fortunately rare but if they happened before, they can (and likely will) happen again.

The economic impacts could be devastating. A lot of people could well die because few of us know how to live like they did in the 1800s. Few of us have land to grow food, either.; 9/12/12, 4:03 PM
FleetUSA said...: Just the first pic is mind blowing.; 9/12/12, 4:48 PM
CWJ said...: I have always been in awe of things like this. And my awe just explodes when I think of the orders of magnitude beyond our solar system.

This is one reason that I believe that human arrogance is at the root of AGW.

Understand Sol first and all its influences and feedbacks, then understand Gaia and all it systems and feedback loops, and THEN tell me about Man's unique influence. Sheesh.; 9/12/12, 5:13 PM
CWJ said...: Oh, I forgot the most immediate important thing. Thank you A Althouse for posts like this. The political posts can be found anywhere, though perhaps not the WI specific ones. But these are the posts that make my day. FYI, it was your post on the Balkan dictator's mountaintop monument to communism that finally convinced me to become an active commentator.; 9/12/12, 5:28 PM
Methadras said...: The Drill SGT said...

If it had happened facing us, what are the EMP impacts?

It would effectively cripple electrical grids world wide. It would drop us back to the horse and buggy days. It would essentially throw the world into collapse.; 9/12/12, 5:28 PM
Gene said...: Methadras: It would effectively cripple electrical grids world wide. It would drop us back to the horse and buggy days. It would essentially throw the world into collapse.

I think we'd be a lot worse off than merely being thrown back into the horse and buggy days. Many people then lived on farms. Food was produced locally. There was far more opportunity to forage in the fields and streams.

With the population burden we have today people would go hungry within a few days.

In American cities people already start setting fires within hours of the power going out. Without any means to fight fires our cities would simply burn down. Roving mobs of hung people would flee into the suburbs and attack every undefended house, which is to say most of them.

Three or four years before Katrina I read a prescient article saying that New Orleans was an accident waiting to happen. But no one did anything and the accident happened anyway. Same thing with these Carrington events. The good news is (I think) we get enough warning of solar flares to prepare for them (although not for electromagnetic Pulse attacks); 9/12/12, 8:32 PM
Astro said...: About 10 days after this huge solar eruption there was a massive explosion on Jupiter. Jupiter is known to have a very strong and complex magnetic field.
So... Coincidence? I wonder how long it would take this blown-off plasma to reach Jupiter.; 9/13/12, 2:18 AM