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Thread: Sun Is Going To Explode

  1. #1
    Just kidding , but

    The Sun's intense activity in the past week will go into the record books.
    Scientists say they have been amazed by the unprecedented ferocity of the gigantic flares exploding on the solar surface in the last 10 days and Tuesday saw the Sun has unleash its largest ever recorded solar flare.
    Powerful solar flares are given an "X" designation. There was an X8 and an X3 event on Sunday then on Monday, there was an X3 flare followed by smaller ones. Last week there were X7 and X10 events that took place back-to-back. However, Tuesday's flare went off the scale; researchers say it was "well above X20" making it the most powerful ever recorded. Each of the larger flares represents billions of tonnes of superhot gas being blasted into space - some of it directed at Earth. Researchers are once more predicting strong and colourful displays of aurorae - polar lights - when the charged particles from the Sun crash into our atmosphere. There is also a little concern about how some satellites will be affected.

    The major flares have come from sunspot region 486, now officially the most active solar region in recorded solar observational history.
    Region 486 is being taken over the Sun's limb by solar rotation. Parts of the latest megaflare occurred beyond the limb.

    Not really cause for concern, but i found it interesting and anyway if the sun exploded most of us would probably never know about it

    (source for info bbc again)

  2. The Drawing Room   -   #2
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    Originally posted by ilw
    Not really cause for concern, but i found it interesting and anyway if the sun exploded most of us would probably never know about it laugh.gif laugh.gif
    Most of us? You mean there will be survivors?



  3. The Drawing Room   -   #3
    No I mean that most people will be dead before they realise, others working in solar monitoring stations would get some warning before they died.

  4. The Drawing Room   -   #4
    MagicNakor's Avatar On the Peripheral
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    The sun isn't due to engulf the earth in flames for a few billion years yet.

    things are quiet until hitler decides he'd like to invade russia
    so, he does
    the russians are like "OMG WTF D00DZ, STOP TKING"
    and the germans are still like "omg ph34r n00bz"
    the russians fall back, all the way to moscow
    and then they all begin h4xing, which brings on the russian winter
    the germans are like "wtf, h4x"
    -- WW2 for the l33t

  5. The Drawing Room   -   #5
    An explosion in the chromosphere and corona of a star which results in the ejection into space of a burst of charged particles and radiation, especially X-rays. Minor flares occur regularly on the Sun and give rise to auroras when they reach the Earth. Once or twice a decade, much larger solar flares known as "coronal mass ejections" release enough energy to disrupt electricity supplies and communications satellites. One such outburst in 1989 brought down the power grid in northern Quebec. However, even solar activity of this magnitude is mild by normal stellar standards. From studying records of other lone stars in the Galaxy of comparable size, brightness, age, and composition to the Sun, astronomers have found that most Sun-like stars are prone to eject "superflares," with about 10,000 times more energy than the event that caused the Canadian blackout, about once a century. A solar superflare would be enough to melt large flood plains on the icy satellites of Jupiter and Saturn and instantly destroy about half of the Earth's ozone layer. Although it would not wipe out life on Earth, it might have serious, short-term consequences for the food chain at high latitudes (where the ozone depletion would be greatest) and result in elevated levels of ionizing radiation over the whole planet with mutagenic and possibly long-term evolutionary effects. If the Sun is indeed unusual in its stability and hospitability toward life, this could have important implications for the frequency with which life and intelligence emerge on other worlds.
    http://www.angelfire.com/on2/daviddarling/flare.htm

    Not quite an Extinction Level Event, but not too shabby

  6. The Drawing Room   -   #6
    Snee's Avatar Error xɐʇuʎs BT Rep: +1
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    I think it would take approx. eight minutes before we noticed the sun had gone out or exploded. Not sure if we'd notice anything before it hit though.

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