The Sun, an almost perfectly spherical ball of hot plasma and magnetic fields, is located at the center of our solar system. It is the Earth’s main source of energy, and without it, life would not be possible. Throughout human history, many cultures and civilizations worshiped the sun as a god, but today the sun is seen in a different light.
Scientists have been warning that the sun’s solar cycle, which peaks in 2012, could cause powerful solar storms that could leave many places on earth without communication and electricity for months.
What is a solar storm you ask? To find that out, let us leave this small, terraqueous globe of ours and venture to what may be the source of light that leaves us in the dark.
Hey…Who turned out the lights?
Advances in technology have given scientists a look at what goes on inside the sun. The findings from this research predict we may be in for a riotous 2012.
This is of course due to the massive solar storms predicted to occur in 2012. You see, the sun goes through an 11 year cycle, where sunspots come and go on the suns surface. Sun spots are well-defined surface areas that appear darker than their surroundings because of lower temperatures or, in simpler terms, big black spots. It is during the peak of this cycle that solar storms take place.
Solar storms start with powerful magnetic fields in the sun, which can snap at any time, releasing immense amounts of energy into space. According to NASA, some of the solar particles from the explosion could hit earth at about one million miles an hour.
The magnetosphere, a protective shield created by the earth’s magnetic field, usually blocks most of the solar particles keeping damage to a minimum. Unfortunately for us, the magnetosphere has been weakening recently and, its ability to protect earth has been diminished.
Another concern is that researchers predict the next solar peak will be 30 to 50 percent stronger than the last one, which occurred in 2001. Solar flares have done considerable damage to the earth in the past, even when our magnetosphere was strong.
In 1859, a strong solar storm caused telegraph wires to short out in the United States and in Europe. This caused widespread fires around the affected areas. Other Solar storms in 1989 and 2003 caused major blackouts in Canada and United States.
If a major solar storm were to occur, power grids could be knocked out leaving millions of people without electricity. Cell phones, GPS, weather satellites and many other electronic systems that depend on satellites could stop working.
This is a perfect time to panic…
Now for the question everyone has been asking: Should we worry? Well, my bet is if scientists are freaking out about it that means we should be too. But scientists still aren’t a hundred percent accurate in predicting when solar storms will occur and the degree of their intensity.
If the solar storm is stronger than predicted, the solar particles released into the magnetosphere could boost the gravitational pull on satellites and cause them to crash down to earth. This could cause some types of long distance communications to be lost.
Countless power grids could fail, and electricity could be lost for more than 150 million people in United States alone. In the case of interdependent infrastructures, people could lose their air conditioning, potable water, phone service and transportation. Drinking water distribution systems could break down in a couple of hours.
It could take months to fix all these problems, which could lead to serious social and economic disruptions. Potentially these effects could lead to a loss of governmental control over the situation.
Some believe that the solar storms could hit the magnetosphere strongly enough to flip the earth’s magnetic poles. If this were to take place, the Yellowstone Super Volcano which is already overdue to erupt, which you should already know, could explode with the power of ten atomic bombs. This could cover United States with ash and block sunlight for months, seriously affecting the growth of all plant life, and thus disrupting the food chain.
So yeah – it sounds bad. But doesn’t have to be all bad. In the best case scenario, satellites could be damaged and communications between countries would only be disrupted for a couple months. Trading in affected countries could come to a halt for a couple weeks. I’m pretty sure we could survive a couple of weeks with faulty communication, right?
Stay tuned for next week’s column when I take you to Switzerland to analyze one of the world’s largest science projects – the recreation of the Big Bang!
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