Solar storms

[Highlander]

Did anyone see the program on the telly called `Solar Storms`...[at least I think it was called that],..it was a few days ago, I only watched it tonight on tape.

I know that some here wouldnt have seen it so I will give you the basis of what it was all about.

It started by telling us just what solar storms are.... like anything thats hot, the sun make bubbles like boiling water, these bubbles are gasses formed deep in the core of the sun,..and rise at different speeds depending on their size.

Usualy these bubbles blow out from the surface, but subside before they bust, sometimes they burst and cause a solar flare,...its a bit like a child who is blowing bubbles, if she blows gently, the bubble gets bigger and bigger, but doesnt leave the stick,..if she blows harder they leave the stick and float away

If a damaging solar flare is heading for earth it has to go through a satalite called `ACE`,.. when this is destroyed we get to know about it and we have between 15 minutes and an hour before it reaches us,... this is the last line of defence

The first line of defence are radio waves, we send four types of radio waves 600.000 miles deep into the sun, over the are that is facing earth,... when these radio waves find a bubble, the radio waves increase in speed over the surface of the bubble,..and this gives earth the size of the bubble and the speed at which it is rising,..and so hopefully how damaging it might become,... this gives us a few days,...they hope that they can get this to a weeks warning

It also went on to talk about the uk grid, and how a solar storm would effect the grid, the emp would hit the cables travel along them and down into the transformers and wipe them out,.. the plan to save the grid, is not to turn off the electric as you might expect though

At any one time, much of the grid is turned off,.. daylight, repairs, etc,.. the plan is to turn on as many lights in the country as possible, the idea is that the more of the grid that is on, the more places the emp has to run to ground, and the weaker it gets.

It was a good program

[Terro]

Sounds interesting what Channel was it on
Will it be on an iplayer or something along those lines?

[Highlander]

(30 November 2012, 00:35)Terro Wrote: Sounds interesting what Channel was it on
Will it be on an iplayer or something along those lines?

I cant find the full program on line, but I have found a couple of shorter films on the same program

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpAu42DU2GU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6JM_aly2Eg

[NorthernRaider]

The main threat to earth comes from CMEs, Coronal Mass Ejections, huge clouds of electrically charged particles than can and do burst away from the sun when the magnetic energy string gets twisted during a solar flare, the energy in them can be trillions of whatever the is measured in, watts, amps etc, if we are unlucky the CME is pointing at us when it erupts, this sends the cme stream straight at us.

When it arrives the magnetosphere surrounding the earth deflecting the energy towards the poles, if we are unlucky like Canada was in 84 ish the burst follows the pole down and jumps across to energy electricity distribution grids , thus overloading the grid and blacking everything out.

[Highlander]

Yes,.. the CME`s are the bubbles I mentioned

[OpSecRadio]

I think it's a bit like Russian Roulette - I think there are lots of them but thankfully they rarely hit us directly.