The last big solar maxima happened in the 90s and 2000s when the world was less dependent on electronics to run our infrastructure. Still, scientists have been sounding the alarm that we may not be ready if a huge solar event like the one that happen in the 1800s - that shorted all the telegraph wires and shocked operators around the world - were to happen today. This usually goes unnoticed but in rare circumstances, it can have substantial consequences, like the time 4,096 extra votes mysteriously appeared in a local election in Belgium.Ī huge solar storm can also cause power grids to fail, which is more than an inconvenience at a time when so much of our day-to-day life depends on being online.Įxperts are fairly confident that we should be safe this time around, as they predict this solar maximum should be fairly mild. In computers, a rogue-charged particle can flip. Charged particles can create problems for pretty much anything that relies on electricity. What youll notice is that the light rays attempting to leave the vicinity of the black hole are extremely curved, but the light rays falling into the black hole are straight diagonal lines, as usual. Still, scientists aren't only interested in the sun for its potential to create fascinating vistas on Earth. This is a spacetime diagram showing a black hole in Eddington-Finklestein coordinates, which describe the perspective of an object falling into the black hole. Every 11 years or so, the sun becomes "convectively unstable," meaning its magnetic fields become so unstable that the magnetic north and south poles abruptly flip, throwing our star's polarity out of whack, Mathew Owens, a professor of space physics at the University of Reading, previously told Insider.Ī tornado can be seen near the north pole of the sun. The sun's increased turmoil has already been felt on Earth. "Space weather can ground flights," Mathew Owens, a professor of space physics at the University of Reading said, adding that the Federal Aviation Administration "won't allow flights if they don't have both radio and satellite communications." We're already feeling the effect of the sun's increased activity There were no clear reported effects of the blackout, which lasted more than 10 minutes, though an expert p reviously told Insider such events can interfere with air traffic. This occured in May when a powerful solar flare exploded on our sun, releasing radiation that caused a radio blackout on Earth. "They increase the density of ionized gas, which in turn affects the propagation of radio waves and can result in radio blackouts," according to NASA. How solar flares can lead to radio blackoutsĭuring certain space weather events, such as solar flares, solar energetic particles travel down geomagnetic field lines in the polar regions. Meanwhile, the sun's surface appears gradually less homogenous, indicating more magnetic activity at the surface. In the time-lapse video, solar flares appear as an intense brightening of a region on the sun. Japan has passed laws that redefine rape and raise the age of consent in a landmark overhaul of sex crime laws.
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