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Old 12-06-2019, 11:24 AM
gary
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Superflare events from Sun estimated to be statistically significant for modern Earth

What we regard as "normal-sized" flares are common on the sun.

In recent years, astronomers have observed "superflares" on stars
hundreds of light years away which are hundreds to thousands of times
more energetic than normal flares.

So can a superflare ever occur on the sun in modern times?

Researchers have performed statistical analysis on data from GAIA and the
Apache Point Observatory on other stars and come to the conclusion that
a superflare on the sun is still probable.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Strain, University of Colorado at Boulder
The bottom line: age matters. Based on the team's calculations, younger stars tend to produce the most superflares. But older stars like our sun, now a respectable 4.6 billion years old, aren't off the hook.

"Young stars have superflares once every week or so," Notsu said. "For the sun, it's once every few thousand years on average."

The group published its latest results in May in The Astrophysical Journal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Strain, University of Colorado at Boulder
Notsu can't be sure when the next big solar light show is due to hit Earth. But he said that it's a matter of when, not if. Still, that could give humans time to prepare, protecting electronics on the ground and in orbit from radiation in space.

"If a superflare occurred 1,000 years ago, it was probably no big problem. People may have seen a large aurora," Notsu said. "Now, it's a much bigger problem because of our electronics."
Geomagnetic storms have knocked-out power grids in North America
in the past. A superflare has the potential to disrupt power grids over a
wider region of the Earth and could also result in electronics exhibiting
run-time failures or hard faults.

Article here :-
https://phys.org/news/2019-06-rare-s...ten-earth.html

Article here :-
http://astronomy.com/news/2019/06/po...hreat-to-earth
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Old 12-06-2019, 11:38 AM
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multiweb (Marc)
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I went to a space weather seminar last year and some of the stuff they said was hair raising. I think it is in 2016 we had a massive flare that went way clear of earth. It was in the wrong quadrant and didn't affect us. I don't recall if Mars or the rovers there were affected. But the speaker said that if we had been caught in the middle we'd be back to horse and carriages. His words. The magnitude of the flare was on par with the one that happened in the 1800s. They mentioned that to rebuild one of the big electricity transformers that are part of the grid would likely take months. And everything else would take months if not years to go back to normal. He also stressed that technology and our dependence on it has made us more vulnerable to this kind of events and a radical change in what we're doing is needed. But they also feel it is not viewed as a priority and most of the warnings fall in death ears. Pretty much like the 50c temperature they are experiencing today in India. A very short mention in the news. 10s then onto something else.

https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/im...a?src=eoa-iotd

Last edited by multiweb; 19-06-2019 at 08:18 AM. Reason: Added link
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