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Speaker 1: Hey or hey. As a parent in southern California, I

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Speaker 1: assume you have a healthy stash of sunscreen. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have about a hundred and ninety seven partially used

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Speaker 1: containers of it. They just seem to multiply. I know

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Speaker 1: the feeling. Well, what's the strongest sunscreen that you have,

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Speaker 1: the one you use on your kids when you're going

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Speaker 1: outside in a really bright day. Well, mostly, um, I

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Speaker 1: put hats on them. That's important, But in terms of

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Speaker 1: SPF I think it's like a hundred sixty something like that.

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Speaker 1: Too bad. You don't know a particle physicist who can

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Speaker 1: hook you up with some stronger stuff. Oh boy, you

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Speaker 1: have better sunscreen? Yeah, we just wrap everything in meters

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Speaker 1: of concrete. You wrap your children and concrete. I'll be

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Speaker 1: a heavy day at the beach there. I wrapped my

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Speaker 1: particle physics experiment in much more protection than I wrapped

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Speaker 1: my children. At least it's a concrete solution. That's solid.

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Speaker 1: Way to go. Hi, am or handmade cartoonists and the

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Speaker 1: creator of PhD comics. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle

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Speaker 1: physicist at you see Irne and I spend plenty of

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Speaker 1: time at the beach. Oh, yeah, what do you do

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Speaker 1: at the beach? Do you swim? Do you for all

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Speaker 1: like with the dolphins? Do you build sand castles sculptures?

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Speaker 1: I mostly just marvel the fact that I get to

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Speaker 1: live in such a beautiful place, a place where other

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Speaker 1: people travel to go on vacation. It's just ten minutes away.

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Speaker 1: And I thought, you know, if I lived here, maybe

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Speaker 1: I would just never go to the beach. But no,

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Speaker 1: I actually go pretty often. I think the pictures you've

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Speaker 1: posted about going to the beach, you just sit there

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Speaker 1: reading physics papers. It's the best place to read physics papers.

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Speaker 1: That he's not in the ocean. Everybody enjoys something different

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Speaker 1: about the beach. Man, there's something in it for everybody,

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Speaker 1: like grains of sand and anyway, have you been in

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Speaker 1: the Pacific recently? It's cold, also full of oil right now,

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Speaker 1: there's an oil spill going on right now, right where

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Speaker 1: you live. That's true, that was recently an oil pipeline

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Speaker 1: berth in Huntington's Beach, a few miles up the coast

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Speaker 1: from US. But pretty sad well. Anyways, Welcome to our

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Speaker 1: podcast Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe, a production of

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Speaker 1: I Heart Radio in which we put your brain on

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Speaker 1: the beach so that it can contemplate this incredible and

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Speaker 1: crazy universe that we find ourselves in. We extend our

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Speaker 1: minds from the shores of Earth to the edges of

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Speaker 1: black holes, all the way down to the core of

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Speaker 1: suns and the early history of the universe. We think

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Speaker 1: about everything that has happened, everything that couldn't happen, everything

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Speaker 1: that might happen, and everything that will happen in the universe,

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Speaker 1: and we try to wrap it all up in a

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Speaker 1: forty five minute podcast full of silly dad jokes and

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Speaker 1: explain it all to you. Yeah, because it is a

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Speaker 1: pretty happening universe. It feels like there's always something going

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Speaker 1: on in this universe. It's never a boring universe. And

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Speaker 1: so we like to talk about all those amazing things

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Speaker 1: out there at the for us to under at and

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Speaker 1: all at and makes us feel cosmically connected to everything,

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Speaker 1: and also all the things that could potentially kill us.

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Speaker 1: That's right, because when you look out into space, it

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Speaker 1: seems like sort of a calm place, right. It's cold,

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Speaker 1: it almost seems frozen, like those stars that are up

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Speaker 1: there are probably the same stars that you're great, great

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Speaker 1: great great great great great great great great great great

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Speaker 1: great great great grandparents looked at when they looked up

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Speaker 1: at the stars and their distant ancestors. And yet we

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Speaker 1: know that the universe is actually chaotic and dynamic and

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Speaker 1: sort of insane, and that crazy things can and do

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Speaker 1: and will happen in the universe, crazy things that might

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Speaker 1: even wipe out humanity. Yeah, and so it'd be nice

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Speaker 1: to sort of know about them a little bit ahead

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Speaker 1: of time, or at least understand as it's you know,

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Speaker 1: destroying humanity. At least we would know a little bit

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Speaker 1: about what's going on. I mean, that would be tragic

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Speaker 1: not to know what happened in those last few moments.

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Speaker 1: You'd like to understand the apocalypse as it happens. So

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Speaker 1: you're like, oh, yeah, this is exactly what Daniel predicted.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to pass on confused that that seems

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Speaker 1: like the worst state to do it in. Wow, that's

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Speaker 1: a whole deep topic. Is it better to die ignorant

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Speaker 1: or to understand what's happened to you? Boy? Yeah, you

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Speaker 1: don't want to have that like face when in your

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Speaker 1: coffin where you're like home. You want to have a

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Speaker 1: calm three you know Zen, look about you. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: there's another possibility that understanding the universe and its threats

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Speaker 1: might actually let you prevent that from happening, might actually

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Speaker 1: save you and your children and let us prepare ourselves

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Speaker 1: against these coming cataclysms. But you mean physics can be useful.

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Speaker 1: I try, My heart is to be irrelevant, but sometimes,

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Speaker 1: despite my best intentions, I do do something useful. Maybe

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Speaker 1: when should retitle the podcast into the you know Humanity

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Speaker 1: Survival Podcast? Daniel and Jorge Save the World? Daniel and

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Speaker 1: Jorge explain how to survive in the apocalypse. Somehow that

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Speaker 1: would be an even more ambitious and less humble titled

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Speaker 1: than the one we already have. Yes, somehow we managed

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Speaker 1: to put up a high bar for that. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: we like to talk about all the amazing things in

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Speaker 1: the universe and all the things that may potentially kill us.

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Speaker 1: And one of those things that may spell the demise

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Speaker 1: of the human race could be right here in our backyard.

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Speaker 1: We live in a nice neighborhood, the Solar System. It's

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Speaker 1: a nice place to raise kids and to have life

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Speaker 1: into evolve and all of that stuff. But there are

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Speaker 1: also lots of dangers lurking. We did an episode about

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Speaker 1: the probability of an asteroid or a comet coming to

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Speaker 1: hit the Earth and wiping out humanity. But that's not

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Speaker 1: the only source of danger. The very thing that gives

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Speaker 1: us life, that powers everything on Earth might also one

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Speaker 1: day fry us dum dumb thune. So to be on

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Speaker 1: the podcast, we'll be talking about would humanity survive a

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Speaker 1: massive solar flare? Now flair, I mean, I guess you

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Speaker 1: mean like fire flare, not like having flair. The sun

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Speaker 1: is pretty snazzy, right, Yeah, it's a cool Well, it's

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Speaker 1: not cool. It's pretty hot, but it does have flair,

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Speaker 1: for sure, it does. I don't think if there's any

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Speaker 1: level of solar snazziness, however, which would be a danger

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Speaker 1: to humanity. We wouldn't all look up a day and

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Speaker 1: be like, oh my gosh, that's just so impressive and

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Speaker 1: then keel over. I don't think that's possible. It's sense.

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Speaker 1: The style is blinding, it's so bright. It's brilliant. It's fashion,

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Speaker 1: it's brilliant. But yeah, so the sun could kill us.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's solely responsible for life on Earth for sure.

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Speaker 1: I mean, without the Sun, we wouldn't be here right, Like,

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Speaker 1: we we need the sun for life, for heat, for energy,

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Speaker 1: for food, for everything. Yeah, it's an incredible source of

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Speaker 1: energy for us, but it's also a crazy turbulent monster.

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Speaker 1: It's an ocean of bubbling plasma, and it's incredible. You know,

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Speaker 1: you can feel the heat of this fire across almost

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Speaker 1: a hundred million miles, Like you ever been to a

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Speaker 1: camp fire, and then your kids like put too much

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Speaker 1: wood on it, and it grows momentarily like so big.

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Speaker 1: You gotta backup, and even just like taking a foot

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Speaker 1: or two step backwards, suddenly it feels much much cooler.

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Speaker 1: That's because the intensity drops very quickly. It with distance.

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Speaker 1: It's like the radius squared. So now, imagine a fire

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Speaker 1: so strong, so hot, so intense that you have to

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Speaker 1: take a hundred million miles worth of steps backwards, and

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Speaker 1: yet you can still feel its heat across that distance

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Speaker 1: of space. That's an incredible fire that's burning up there

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Speaker 1: in the sky. Yeah, and even that far it powers

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Speaker 1: everything on Earth, basically all the plants and animals. We're

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Speaker 1: all here moving around because of the sun that far away,

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Speaker 1: and yet we're so sensitive to it. Operating at exactly

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Speaker 1: a certain level, like if it cranked up ten percent

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Speaker 1: in its brightness, it would throw everything off on Earth.

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Speaker 1: If it went down a few percent, we would all

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Speaker 1: be very, very chilly. So we rely on the Sun

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Speaker 1: being where it is and not changing its performance basically. Ever,

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Speaker 1: I guess because you know, life evolved here on Earth

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Speaker 1: kind of in sync with the sun, right, Like if

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Speaker 1: the Sun had been at another level, then life would

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Speaker 1: have evolved totally differently and we would be maybe have

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Speaker 1: thicker skin or live underground, maybe more. Life would have

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Speaker 1: evolved to match what ever circumstances were here. But you know,

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Speaker 1: if it was really variable, if the sun got like

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Speaker 1: fifty percent hotter every other year and colder, that would

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Speaker 1: be a real challenge. And it might be that life

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Speaker 1: could evolve to live in some weird circumstances, but it

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Speaker 1: might not be right. Some circumstances you just can't survive,

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Speaker 1: Like if the Sun is constantly bathing you with sterilizing radiation,

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Speaker 1: it might be that life just never kicks off. Or

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Speaker 1: the market fluctuations where the sunscreen industry would be all

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Speaker 1: over the place, Those poor investors, Oh my god, Mr

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Speaker 1: Coppert Zone would be out on the street. Yeah, what

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Speaker 1: would he do? Without his third and fourth vacation homes.

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Speaker 1: I mean, seriously, is that even really life? That seems inhumane.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, this was actually a question from a listener

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Speaker 1: from the Netherlands. Colin had a question about how back

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Speaker 1: in a sunboard get that's right. This is a question

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Speaker 1: that came I think on Twitter from Colin who was wondering, like,

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Speaker 1: could something happen on the Sun or in the Sun

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Speaker 1: which emits so much crazy radiation that it could actually

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Speaker 1: wipe out humanity? Right, because I guess the Sun is

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Speaker 1: kind of hotel right, and and not exactly predictable. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's a giant, swirling ball of nuclear fusion explosions. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's exactly not predictable. You know, we do not understand

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Speaker 1: the Sun. There are basic things about the Sun, like

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Speaker 1: the fact that has an eleven year cycle where it

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Speaker 1: gets hotter and colder and brighter and dimmer in the

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Speaker 1: magnetic field flips that we just don't understand the very

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Speaker 1: basics of. But it's not like it's easy. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's a huge ocean of plasma, and plasma is extraordinarily

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Speaker 1: complex to model because it's very strong, very powerful interactions.

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Speaker 1: So to really understand what's happening. You have to like

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Speaker 1: really understand how everything is pushing on everything else and

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Speaker 1: simultaneously a hundred trillion particles all moving together. It's a

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Speaker 1: very complicated thing to understand. Yeah, and hopefully it's something

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Speaker 1: we can understand in the future. Otherwise we might be toast.

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Speaker 1: Literally we wouldn't be toast. We would be the thing

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Speaker 1: that they spread on toast. We would be the soft

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Speaker 1: buttery spread now. I guess you'd call it humor mite

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Speaker 1: or something. All right, Well, as usual, we were wondering

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Speaker 1: how many people out there had the same question is calling,

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Speaker 1: or had thought about whether the sun could or could

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Speaker 1: not flow up and kill us all. So Daniel went

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Speaker 1: out there into the wild to the internet to ask

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Speaker 1: people could a massive solar flare wipe out humanity? And

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Speaker 1: thank you to everybody who participated. If you would like

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Speaker 1: to get deep, dark, pessimistic questions from a random physicists

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Speaker 1: online in your inbox, then please write to us two

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Speaker 1: questions at Daniel and at Jorge dot com. I'll send

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Speaker 1: you the questions right back. You can record them at

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Speaker 1: home on your phone or computer however you like, and

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Speaker 1: send them right back to us. It's easy it's free,

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Speaker 1: you get to be on the podcast, So think about

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Speaker 1: it for a second. Here's what people had to say.

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Speaker 1: I think a massive solar flare could definitely wipe out humanity.

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Speaker 1: I don't think it would be directly. I think it

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Speaker 1: would be like, for example, it would maybe ignites fire

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Speaker 1: in our forests, making it hard for us to breathe,

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Speaker 1: and then it would happen that we would go extinct

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Speaker 1: because of that. It would definitely break our technology and

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Speaker 1: satellites in space, but that wouldn't theoretically wipe us out.

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Speaker 1: But I think the aftermath of it, depending on how

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Speaker 1: massive it is, it could definitely make us fight for

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Speaker 1: our lives somehow. I'd say, yes, a massive solar flare

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Speaker 1: is able to wipe out humanity. We have the Manaty

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Speaker 1: shield to protect us right now, but if that changes

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Speaker 1: over the weekends, or if the flare is like really

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Speaker 1: really huge whopper over flare, then yeah, I guess it

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Speaker 1: should be powerful enough to wipe out the humors. The

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Speaker 1: Sun is massive so compared to the Earth, so yeah,

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Speaker 1: I guess it should be possible. It depends on your

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Speaker 1: definition of massive. If a solar flare was massive in

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Speaker 1: the true physics sense of the term. Then that mass

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Speaker 1: would have enough force and by proxy enough energy that

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Speaker 1: when it reaches Earth, it could at least damage Earth

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Speaker 1: in some way. Um, and I suppose a massive enough

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Speaker 1: solar flare could wipe out all living things on Earth.

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Speaker 1: All right. Doesn't look good for humanity here. Popular opinion

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Speaker 1: doesn't seem to think too highly of the Sun's safety.

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Speaker 1: I think people are just looking up and realizing, oh

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Speaker 1: my gosh, think about how close we are to this crazy,

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Speaker 1: intense monster that you know, we're trusting it to behave itself. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and um, what if you get caught out without a

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Speaker 1: paracel or a hat right exactly? Or you know, we

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Speaker 1: do have some protection, but really, how strong is that?

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Speaker 1: And couldn't survive when the Sun doesn't behave itself. So

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Speaker 1: usually the Sun is just sitting there kind of exploding

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Speaker 1: or burning or churning or you know, diffusing and glowing.

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Speaker 1: But sometimes it has something that's called a solar flare.

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Speaker 1: So let's get into that, Daniel, What exactly is a

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Speaker 1: solar flare? Yeah, solar flare is essentially an intense period

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Speaker 1: of really ation from the Sun. Now, the Sun of

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Speaker 1: course always pumping out radiation this fusion going on in

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Speaker 1: the Sun which heats up this plasma to incredible temperatures,

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Speaker 1: and then the Sun glows at its surface, which means

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Speaker 1: it's shooting off lots of photons, but also it's shooting

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Speaker 1: off protons and electrons and all sorts of stuff. That's

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Speaker 1: the kind of stuff we call the solar wind. So

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Speaker 1: the reason it's dangerous to be out in space, for example,

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Speaker 1: even on a calm day of solar weather, is because

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Speaker 1: the solar wind is a huge amount of radiation, and

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Speaker 1: so if you're out there for too long, you just

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Speaker 1: have these streams of particles passing through your body, potentially

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Speaker 1: messing up your DNA and giving you cancer. So, like

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Speaker 1: on a calm day, the Sun is already pumping out

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Speaker 1: a lot of radiation, and we're normally protected from that

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Speaker 1: radiation because we have a magnetic field and we have

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Speaker 1: an atmosphere, so that's like a shield and a blanket

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Speaker 1: that protects us from the solar radiation. So usually we

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Speaker 1: are getting bombarded by radiation from the Sun, but it's okay,

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Speaker 1: or like, at least life has sort of gotten used

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Speaker 1: to it as we know it here on Earth. That's right.

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Speaker 1: Some of it makes it through the magnetic field and

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Speaker 1: Earth and comes down and is radiation, which you know happens,

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Speaker 1: and that's part of why life mutates at the rate

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Speaker 1: that it does, because occasionally a crazy particle from the

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Speaker 1: Sun will make it all the way down and hit

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Speaker 1: your ancestor d NA and make you a little stronger,

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Speaker 1: or make your hair a little darker, or make your

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Speaker 1: eye change a little color, or make it immu a

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Speaker 1: little smarter or something, and so that contributes to natural

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Speaker 1: selection and that's good. And that's not just from the Sun.

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Speaker 1: We also get cosmic rays from other stars and from

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Speaker 1: other parts of the galaxy and maybe even extra galactic

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Speaker 1: we don't know, but so there's all sorts of radiation

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Speaker 1: coming down from space and that's just sort of like

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Speaker 1: the background the basics, right, But we're interested in is

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Speaker 1: when the Sun isn't just sort of like cooking along

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Speaker 1: on a quiet day, when it acts out, when it

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Speaker 1: does something a little different. So one thing it can

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Speaker 1: do is something called a solar flare, which is just

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Speaker 1: like an intense localized burst of radiation. And you know,

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Speaker 1: this can last for minutes, it can last for hours,

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Speaker 1: but it can shoot out a lot of radiation towards

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Speaker 1: the Earth. I see. It's not just like uv raised

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Speaker 1: that are injurs. It's it's actually shooting all kinds of

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Speaker 1: stuff out and showering us with it, exactly. And there's

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Speaker 1: two categories of this kind of thing. There's a solar flare.

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Speaker 1: Then there's also something else called a coronal mass ejection.

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Speaker 1: A solar flare is mostly radiation, you get extra protons

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Speaker 1: and photons and gamma rays. But sometimes what happens on

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Speaker 1: the Sun is that it's sort of like you get

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Speaker 1: like a bubble burst, like a burp or something sort

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Speaker 1: of like imagine watching like really good, really thick tomato

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Speaker 1: sauce bubble. Right. The surface of it is usually just

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Speaker 1: like sitting there bubbling quietly, but occasionally you get like

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Speaker 1: a bubble forms and a splat and a sprays like

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Speaker 1: your kitchen with a little droplets of tomato sauce. Right.

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Speaker 1: The same sort of thing happens on the surface of

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Speaker 1: the Sun. Sometimes the magnetic fields get a little twisted

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Speaker 1: and caught up, and there's a little bit of a

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Speaker 1: burp or a bubble bursting. It can actually eject real

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Speaker 1: plasma out into space like basically a scoop of the

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Speaker 1: Sun itself, the plasma of the Sun. It's sent out

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Speaker 1: into space, and this is called a coronal mass ejection.

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Speaker 1: So you have the solar flare and then you have

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Speaker 1: the coronal mass ejection. We don't really understand if they're related,

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Speaker 1: if they're parts of the same thing. But the coronal

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Speaker 1: mass ejection is much more dangerous. It seems a little

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Speaker 1: rude of the Sun to be burping in our direction

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Speaker 1: without covering its mouth. Maybe we need to invent like

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Speaker 1: massive solar antacids. Yeah, or send it to etiquette school,

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Speaker 1: you know, solar etiquette school. I see, you think you

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Speaker 1: should be burping in the direction of another planet. You

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Speaker 1: should be at least covering its mouth. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: Or so you think like a cosmic napkin is a

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Speaker 1: solution to this problem. Yeah, there you go. We can

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Speaker 1: build that, right, you build anything. I'll call my favorite

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Speaker 1: engineer and ask him about it. Giant concrete napkin in space.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, so it seems like you're saying there are

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Speaker 1: two things. One is a solar flare, which is just

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Speaker 1: like we notice a huge spike in the radiation from

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Speaker 1: the Sun. And then there's something else, which is like

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Speaker 1: an actual process we're aware of, which is like when

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Speaker 1: the sun burps or where there's like a bubble in

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Speaker 1: the sun. Those are two different things. Those are two

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Speaker 1: different things that we observe. They might be parts of

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Speaker 1: the same process, we just don't really understand. Like usually

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Speaker 1: a coronal mass ejection also has solar flares associated with it,

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Speaker 1: but solar flares don't always lead to coronal mass ejections,

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Speaker 1: and sometimes the connection between them is hard to understand.

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Speaker 1: You know, this is just like we are observing, we

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Speaker 1: are writing stuff down in our notebooks. We do not

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Speaker 1: have a great theory for what's going on inside the

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Speaker 1: sun that can predict these things at all. We're just

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Speaker 1: like really in the very early days of trying to

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Speaker 1: develop models for the inside of the sun, and so

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Speaker 1: we don't understand these They might be part of a

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Speaker 1: larger phenomenon, they might not interesting. So sometimes they are

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Speaker 1: unexplained spikes in radiation from the sun, is what you're saying,

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Speaker 1: Like we don't know where they're coming from. Yes, all

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Speaker 1: the time, Like every single one is unpredicted. Like we

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Speaker 1: see them, we're like, oh, well, look what's happening. It's

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Speaker 1: not like somebody can tell you next week there's a

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Speaker 1: good chance of a coronal mass ejection. It just happens,

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Speaker 1: and we observe it, and we write it down and

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Speaker 1: we hope that the scientists can eventually figure out what

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Speaker 1: causes it and maybe even one day predict them. Now,

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Speaker 1: are these related to you know, when you see pictures

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Speaker 1: of the Sun, you see like these like loops of

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Speaker 1: plasma or arcs of plasma that kind of you know,

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Speaker 1: go up and and then back down into the Sun.

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Speaker 1: Are those the coronal mass ejections? Coronal mass ejections are

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Speaker 1: like those that are these big loops that form and

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Speaker 1: then burst. But the dangerous thing is when they burst

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Speaker 1: and they send the blob of plasma out into space.

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Speaker 1: A lot of those loops just collapse and go back

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Speaker 1: into the Sun. What's really dangerous is when the magnetic

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Speaker 1: fields get twisted in such a way that they snap

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Speaker 1: and they send that plasma out instead of a collapsing

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Speaker 1: back in. And it doesn't always have to be dangerous

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Speaker 1: for us, Like it can send a coronal mass ejection

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Speaker 1: out towards Jupiter and just miss us. Right, It's not

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Speaker 1: often that one of these will actually wash over the

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Speaker 1: Earth because we are a tiny target far away, but

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Speaker 1: sometimes it will It's like an actual piece of the

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Speaker 1: Sun that it shoots out. Yeah, exactly, just like that

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Speaker 1: bubble on your tomato sauce is made of actual hot,

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Speaker 1: scalding tomato sauce, right, the same way, this coronal mass

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Speaker 1: ejection is like a scoop of the Sun that's been

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Speaker 1: sent out into space. All right, well, let's get into

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Speaker 1: what might be causing these coronal mass ejections or solar

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Speaker 1: flares and what the dangers are. But first let's take

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Speaker 1: a quick break. All right, we're talking about solar flares,

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Speaker 1: which are intense outbursts of radiation from the Sun, and

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Speaker 1: these can be pretty powerful, right Daniel. They're like, you know,

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Speaker 1: megaton level bursts of energy. It's an enormous amount of energy.

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Speaker 1: Some of these have the equivalent of like ten billion

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Speaker 1: megaton bombs, ten billion like Hiroshima bombs. Yes, it's an

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Speaker 1: incredible amount of energy. Look, billions of tons of material

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Speaker 1: from the Sun gets shot out into space and you know,

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Speaker 1: the Sun doesn't even notice, right, It's like a tiny, tiny,

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Speaker 1: tiniest fraction of the Sun has no impact on the

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Speaker 1: mass of the Sun. But you know it's significant compared

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Speaker 1: to the Earth. Yeah, it's it's like maybe about the

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Speaker 1: mass of the Earth kind of or more. You know,

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Speaker 1: the Earth is much more ma than these, but it

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Speaker 1: carries enough energy to do some serious damage, something we

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Speaker 1: could really detect here on Earth. Well, you're saying earlier

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Speaker 1: there are solar flares and then there are coronal mass ejects,

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Speaker 1: But we don't know if they're the same thing. Do

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Speaker 1: we know what's causing either of them. We don't know

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Speaker 1: what's causing either of them. We know something about the

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Speaker 1: category of idea that might underlie both of them. That

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Speaker 1: just has to do with understanding the dynamics of a

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Speaker 1: very very complex system, which is the Sun. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's basically like an ocean of plasma. But plasma is

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Speaker 1: not like just the hot gas, right. You can think

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Speaker 1: about how complicated a hot gas is. It's got particles

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Speaker 1: whizzing around in every direction, sometimes bouncing off each other,

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Speaker 1: but gas is usually neutral. In a plasma, it's so

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Speaker 1: hot that the electrons have left their little atoms and

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Speaker 1: they're flying around on their own. And now the atoms

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Speaker 1: also have electric charge, So everything in there doesn't just

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Speaker 1: have a lot of energy, it also has charges, positives

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Speaker 1: and negatives, and so there's a lot of interactions. Now

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Speaker 1: you want to understand what's going to happen. You want

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Speaker 1: to think about like a particle moving through that it's

408
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Speaker 1: getting tugged on and pulled on by everything else in

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Speaker 1: that plasma. It's a real mess. We have difficulty understanding

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Speaker 1: like how a plasma works inside our fusion reactors where

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Speaker 1: it's just like a single little loop of plasma. Now

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Speaker 1: imagine modeling like an entire sun and it's got oceans

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Speaker 1: and convections and currents inside of it that we don't understand. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I imagine like if we have a current of you know,

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Speaker 1: positively charged ions or electrons, and that's going to generate

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Speaker 1: a magnetic field, and then that's going to affect the

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00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:33,280
Speaker 1: flow over there, and so it gets really complicatedly fast.

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Speaker 1: And that's exactly the right way to think about it.

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Speaker 1: In terms of flows. It's not just like a bubbling

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Speaker 1: tomato sauce right where everything is just sort of sitting

421
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Speaker 1: and bouncing around. It has flows in it, and we

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Speaker 1: know that because those flows are charged particles, which means

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Speaker 1: there are currents, which means it generates magnetic fields, and

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Speaker 1: the sun has a very very powerful magnetic field. So

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Speaker 1: that means that there are these currents of plasma, these

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Speaker 1: incredibly vast currents of plasma, right like tubes of plasma

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Speaker 1: bigger than Jupiter, right Like, the width of Jupiter is

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Speaker 1: small compared to the width of these currents of plasma

429
00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:08,960
Speaker 1: flowing through the Sun. But they're not just calmly flowing

430
00:22:09,000 --> 00:22:11,560
Speaker 1: in a circle the same way year after year. They

431
00:22:11,640 --> 00:22:14,960
Speaker 1: change and they swap. These are very powerful magnetic fields

432
00:22:14,960 --> 00:22:17,800
Speaker 1: that sometimes get tangled up and sometimes snap and things

433
00:22:17,880 --> 00:22:20,960
Speaker 1: change directions suddenly. So that's why it's not very calm

434
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:23,360
Speaker 1: and why it's very chaotic and hard to predict what's

435
00:22:23,359 --> 00:22:26,240
Speaker 1: going to happen. It's kind of like a weather almost, right,

436
00:22:26,280 --> 00:22:29,439
Speaker 1: Like it's so unpredictable. Anything could happen, like a small

437
00:22:29,520 --> 00:22:33,399
Speaker 1: solar butterfly could and uh, you know, causing a huge

438
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:35,879
Speaker 1: solar flare on the other side of the sun. Yeah.

439
00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:38,720
Speaker 1: Or imagine taking you know, a bowl of hot spaghetti

440
00:22:38,760 --> 00:22:41,800
Speaker 1: noodles right and jiggling them and then trying to understand

441
00:22:41,840 --> 00:22:43,399
Speaker 1: like where each of them are going to end up.

442
00:22:43,680 --> 00:22:46,560
Speaker 1: It's really complicated how these things interact and tangle up

443
00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 1: with each other and don't, and so to understand like

444
00:22:48,880 --> 00:22:51,280
Speaker 1: when this is going to happen. We think that maybe

445
00:22:51,320 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 1: it's connected to when these magnetic field lines get so

446
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:56,520
Speaker 1: twisted that they have to like suddenly snap in one

447
00:22:56,560 --> 00:22:59,679
Speaker 1: direction to get reorented to like settle down. But we

448
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:02,760
Speaker 1: don't really know. Our models are not sophisticated enough to

449
00:23:02,920 --> 00:23:05,280
Speaker 1: predict when this might happen. It's just sort of like

450
00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:08,200
Speaker 1: the general idea we have about what might be costing it.

451
00:23:08,200 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 1: It's all spaghetti. Yeah, you seem to be really jones

452
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:14,600
Speaker 1: in for some spaghetti and tomato sauce here, Daniel, is

453
00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:17,920
Speaker 1: it lunch fie? No. I was making a pizza last

454
00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:19,760
Speaker 1: week and we were at a tomato sauce and you know,

455
00:23:20,000 --> 00:23:23,680
Speaker 1: I hear that everybody always says jarred tomato sauces garbage

456
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:25,720
Speaker 1: compared to tomato sauce you make at home. But I

457
00:23:25,800 --> 00:23:28,280
Speaker 1: never really believed that until we were out of tomato sauce.

458
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:30,119
Speaker 1: But we did have cans of tomatoes, and I was like,

459
00:23:30,160 --> 00:23:32,119
Speaker 1: all right, I'll make some tomato sauce. And then I

460
00:23:32,160 --> 00:23:35,480
Speaker 1: was like, wow, this is what everybody's talking about. So

461
00:23:35,560 --> 00:23:37,560
Speaker 1: now I'm hooked. And I got like bubbling pots of

462
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:39,480
Speaker 1: tomato sauce in my house all the time. So yes,

463
00:23:39,520 --> 00:23:41,439
Speaker 1: I got tomato sauce on the brain. I will admit.

464
00:23:41,880 --> 00:23:43,359
Speaker 1: Do you have to wear sunglasses when you look at

465
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:46,320
Speaker 1: it just in case something bubbles up. I have a

466
00:23:46,440 --> 00:23:49,400
Speaker 1: very powerful magnetic field so that tomato plasma doesn't enter

467
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:52,800
Speaker 1: my atmosphere as chaotic as tomato sauces. And the sun

468
00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 1: is also a pretty chaotic. It's got magnetic fields and

469
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:58,720
Speaker 1: flows and so it's pretty unpredictable. But it's sort of

470
00:23:58,760 --> 00:24:00,879
Speaker 1: going in a cycle. Right, you're telling me that the

471
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:03,040
Speaker 1: Sun kind of has a cycle to it. It has

472
00:24:03,040 --> 00:24:06,960
Speaker 1: an eleven year cycle and it's very regular, right, And

473
00:24:07,040 --> 00:24:10,640
Speaker 1: every eleven years, the magnetic field of the Sun flips, right,

474
00:24:10,800 --> 00:24:13,600
Speaker 1: it goes like north becomes south, the south becomes north,

475
00:24:14,040 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: and this is crazy. Yeah, you know, the magnetic field

476
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:19,639
Speaker 1: of the Earth also flips. We covered it in a podcast.

477
00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 1: It's not something we understand very well. And it happens

478
00:24:22,200 --> 00:24:26,320
Speaker 1: much more irregularly, like sometimes every fifty years, sometimes every

479
00:24:26,359 --> 00:24:29,280
Speaker 1: million years, and it hasn't happened in a long long time.

480
00:24:29,600 --> 00:24:32,679
Speaker 1: But on the Sun it happens every eleven years like clockwork.

481
00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:35,199
Speaker 1: And this eleven year cycle is also connected to like

482
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:37,919
Speaker 1: the intensity of the Sun and the frequency of these

483
00:24:37,960 --> 00:24:41,080
Speaker 1: solar flares and these coronal mass ejections. So there's some

484
00:24:41,240 --> 00:24:44,919
Speaker 1: like very powerful eleven year cycle going on inside the

485
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:48,000
Speaker 1: Sun that determines how everything operates. Interesting, it's like a

486
00:24:48,040 --> 00:24:50,400
Speaker 1: clock that's weird, and we don't know the source of it,

487
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:52,679
Speaker 1: and so on Earth, we sort of know that the

488
00:24:52,720 --> 00:24:54,879
Speaker 1: magnetic field of the of our planet is due to

489
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:59,440
Speaker 1: the iron and the molten cork kind of rotating and flowing.

490
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 1: But what happening in the Sun. The Sun doesn't have

491
00:25:01,880 --> 00:25:04,680
Speaker 1: like iron in the middle, does it. I mean, has

492
00:25:04,720 --> 00:25:07,280
Speaker 1: some iron, I imagine, but not that much. But it

493
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:09,840
Speaker 1: doesn't have to be iron. All you need are currents,

494
00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 1: right to get a magnetic field. What you need are

495
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:17,479
Speaker 1: currents in motion. Charged particles moving create magnetic fields. And

496
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:21,560
Speaker 1: so even just protons, right, the Sun is mostly protons

497
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:23,879
Speaker 1: and electrons. You can think of it as hydrogen, but

498
00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:27,160
Speaker 1: it's plasma. So those protons and electrons and the hydrogen

499
00:25:27,200 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 1: atom have broken apart, so it's mostly just a huge

500
00:25:30,119 --> 00:25:32,959
Speaker 1: swarm of protons and electrons, and those things in motion

501
00:25:33,359 --> 00:25:36,360
Speaker 1: are a current, and those currents and loops will generate

502
00:25:36,400 --> 00:25:40,320
Speaker 1: magnetic fields in the same way that ionized metal inside

503
00:25:40,320 --> 00:25:45,240
Speaker 1: the Earth is swarming around creating magnetic fields. Plasma of

504
00:25:45,320 --> 00:25:48,600
Speaker 1: protons and electrons inside the Sun is doing the same thing,

505
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 1: but much more powerfully. But I guess you're it's weird

506
00:25:51,280 --> 00:25:54,040
Speaker 1: because you're saying it's totally chaotic and unpredictable, But we

507
00:25:54,080 --> 00:25:56,760
Speaker 1: know it's also doing it in an eleven year cycle,

508
00:25:57,240 --> 00:26:00,000
Speaker 1: so there must be some predictability about it. There's definitely

509
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 1: some predictability, and we should be able to figure it

510
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 1: out eventually. We just haven't, Like we can't predict it.

511
00:26:05,000 --> 00:26:08,119
Speaker 1: But you know, like everything in the universe, at one level,

512
00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:12,040
Speaker 1: it's a chaotic, buzzing insanity that can't possibly describe in

513
00:26:12,080 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: simple terms, but there's always a way to tell, like

514
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,320
Speaker 1: an approximate mathematical story about it and to say, like

515
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:20,840
Speaker 1: here the most important bits, or here we can boil

516
00:26:20,880 --> 00:26:23,439
Speaker 1: it down to this and that we can describe. And

517
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 1: so you know, while there are bits of it that

518
00:26:25,560 --> 00:26:27,439
Speaker 1: we can't predict that are always going to be chaotic,

519
00:26:27,440 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 1: there are also elements of it that we think we

520
00:26:29,560 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: will be able to predict, because, as you say, there

521
00:26:32,320 --> 00:26:34,440
Speaker 1: are regular patterns there that we hope to be able

522
00:26:34,480 --> 00:26:37,679
Speaker 1: to like connect to our mathematical ideas, and that's in

523
00:26:37,720 --> 00:26:41,200
Speaker 1: the end, what physics is is taking this crazy chaotic

524
00:26:41,280 --> 00:26:44,080
Speaker 1: universe and trying to boil it down summarize it using

525
00:26:44,119 --> 00:26:48,280
Speaker 1: approximate mathematical stories. Right, that's pretty cool you were saying that.

526
00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:51,440
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes the Sun just has these flares where

527
00:26:51,240 --> 00:26:55,720
Speaker 1: there's increased radiation, and sometimes it's not due to these

528
00:26:55,760 --> 00:26:58,240
Speaker 1: bubbles in the sun. So do we have any ideas

529
00:26:58,240 --> 00:27:01,800
Speaker 1: about what might be causing these outbursts of i radiation?

530
00:27:01,840 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 1: Is it just the whole Sun suddenly burns brighter for

531
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:06,720
Speaker 1: some reason? Yea, So the solar flares, they are also

532
00:27:06,800 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: still localized, right, Like, it's not like the entire Sun

533
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: gets brighter. There's like spots on the Sun which generate

534
00:27:13,520 --> 00:27:16,960
Speaker 1: intense births of radiation. But again that's not something we understand,

535
00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:20,000
Speaker 1: and sometimes these are connected to coronal mass injections, but

536
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 1: sometimes they're not. So solar flare is not like the

537
00:27:22,800 --> 00:27:25,399
Speaker 1: entire Sun getting brighter all of a sudden. It's like

538
00:27:25,520 --> 00:27:29,040
Speaker 1: spots of the Sun getting brighter, and solar astronomers, people

539
00:27:29,080 --> 00:27:30,920
Speaker 1: who look at the sun you can see these things.

540
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:32,760
Speaker 1: I mean, don't look at the sun unless you have

541
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:35,360
Speaker 1: special technology for we're dimming it. But if you watch

542
00:27:35,440 --> 00:27:38,280
Speaker 1: the sun you can see these dots form sometimes, and

543
00:27:38,320 --> 00:27:41,520
Speaker 1: those are solar flares of intense patterns of localized radiation

544
00:27:41,600 --> 00:27:43,320
Speaker 1: from the Sun. Yeah, I think we're used to in

545
00:27:43,320 --> 00:27:45,200
Speaker 1: our heads of thinking of the sun. It's just like,

546
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 1: you know, bright this that's one color and it's homogeneous

547
00:27:49,680 --> 00:27:51,479
Speaker 1: and it's burning. But it's actually like if you look

548
00:27:51,520 --> 00:27:54,280
Speaker 1: at pictures of the sun, it's pretty the texture like

549
00:27:54,400 --> 00:27:56,760
Speaker 1: has a ton of texture to it, and you can

550
00:27:56,800 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 1: see all kinds of swirling patterns on it. If you

551
00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 1: look at the red photograph of it. Yeah, it's really

552
00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:03,480
Speaker 1: kind of beautiful. Actually, it's incredible. It's just like a

553
00:28:03,520 --> 00:28:06,720
Speaker 1: big ocean, you know, not a tomato sauce, but of plasma,

554
00:28:06,800 --> 00:28:08,879
Speaker 1: and it's quite gorgeous to watch. Actually. All right, well,

555
00:28:08,960 --> 00:28:12,879
Speaker 1: let's getting into the danger of the solar flares. You know,

556
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:15,879
Speaker 1: we joke around that you need extra sun block, but

557
00:28:16,080 --> 00:28:18,480
Speaker 1: if it's big enough to you, that probably won't help you. Yeah,

558
00:28:18,480 --> 00:28:21,600
Speaker 1: that's right. These things can be really significant. Now, the

559
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: solar flares probably won't do like any damage to Earth

560
00:28:25,160 --> 00:28:28,160
Speaker 1: because the magnetic field we have in the atmosphere are

561
00:28:28,240 --> 00:28:31,879
Speaker 1: likely to protect us. But these coronal mass ejections, they

562
00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:36,399
Speaker 1: represent a significant danger because if they're magnetic field is

563
00:28:36,440 --> 00:28:38,840
Speaker 1: oriented in the right way, you can sort of slip

564
00:28:38,960 --> 00:28:42,240
Speaker 1: between the lines of our magnetic field and it can

565
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:45,440
Speaker 1: really wash over the Earth and dump a lot of energy.

566
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: And this is not hypothetical, like this has happened in

567
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:51,880
Speaker 1: the past, in recent recorded history. Yeah, actually in like

568
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:54,200
Speaker 1: the last couple of centuries, right, Yeah, one of these

569
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:58,600
Speaker 1: things hit earth in eighteen fifty nine. This enormous mass

570
00:28:58,680 --> 00:29:01,000
Speaker 1: of energy hit the Earth. And it's a guy named

571
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: Carrington who was actually watching the sun just before this happened,

572
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: and he was like noting these sun spots, and he

573
00:29:07,160 --> 00:29:09,320
Speaker 1: noticed a bunch of big sun spots, more than he'd

574
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,120
Speaker 1: ever seen before. And then a couple of days later,

575
00:29:12,600 --> 00:29:16,520
Speaker 1: telegraph networks across the Earth started to go crazy, like

576
00:29:16,640 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 1: sparks were flying from people's telegraphs and people who were

577
00:29:19,840 --> 00:29:23,240
Speaker 1: touching wires got shocked. And there was so much energy

578
00:29:23,240 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: in these things that had created like an artificial dawn.

579
00:29:26,680 --> 00:29:29,000
Speaker 1: People like got up and thought, oh, the sun is

580
00:29:29,040 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: coming up, even though it's like two in the morning,

581
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:33,400
Speaker 1: and they got up and started to make breakfast and stuff.

582
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: It was like a major event. People had like a

583
00:29:35,520 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: religious epiphanies. It's like enough for people to think it

584
00:29:38,160 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: was the actual sun, right, like it lit up the sky, yeah,

585
00:29:41,680 --> 00:29:44,080
Speaker 1: or they thought it was the end of days, you know,

586
00:29:44,160 --> 00:29:46,959
Speaker 1: because it was a pretty weird thing. Like imagine not

587
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 1: understanding anything about astronomy and seeing an eclipse, right, it

588
00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: feels like, WHOA, something weird and mystical is happening, right,

589
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 1: something in the sky, something that affects the entire Solar

590
00:29:57,080 --> 00:29:59,320
Speaker 1: system or the universe. It seems to you this is

591
00:29:59,320 --> 00:30:01,800
Speaker 1: an event at that scale right the middle of the night.

592
00:30:01,840 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: The sky is glowing and everything that's electric is like

593
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: giving off sparks and shocking people. Like it was a

594
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: crazy event. And you're saying Carrington kind of saw it coming,

595
00:30:11,440 --> 00:30:13,840
Speaker 1: like he he looked at the telescope, and so the

596
00:30:14,240 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 1: visuals of these the solar flares or coronal mass ejections,

597
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:22,040
Speaker 1: came before the actual coronal mass ejections. That's right, because

598
00:30:22,040 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 1: the coronal mass doesn't travel as fast as the solar flare.

599
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:28,880
Speaker 1: The solar flare is like light and protons traveling near

600
00:30:28,920 --> 00:30:31,720
Speaker 1: the speed of light, whereas the coronal mass ejection it's

601
00:30:31,720 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 1: like this bubble of the sun. It takes like a

602
00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 1: half a day at two days sometimes to get here

603
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:39,160
Speaker 1: from the sun. So he got a little bit of warning.

604
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 1: So he saw these like bright flares happening and then

605
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: boom a couple of days later, enormous event where everybody's

606
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,440
Speaker 1: getting shocked if they're touching something electric. I wonder they

607
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:51,920
Speaker 1: also saw a spike in like you know, sunburns and

608
00:30:52,200 --> 00:30:55,680
Speaker 1: skin cancer. You know that in the months following that event.

609
00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:58,200
Speaker 1: I'm sure there were. Yeah, I don't think they kept

610
00:30:58,200 --> 00:30:59,800
Speaker 1: records like that, but I'm sure there were. Because it

611
00:30:59,840 --> 00:31:02,880
Speaker 1: was a huge radiation event. You know, everything around you

612
00:31:02,960 --> 00:31:06,680
Speaker 1: that can conduct electricity got pushed by all the crazy

613
00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:10,080
Speaker 1: intense radiation particles coming in and hitting those wires and

614
00:31:10,120 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 1: pushing the electrons in them, creating you know, this physical

615
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:15,240
Speaker 1: event where like the energy from the sun is turned

616
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:18,920
Speaker 1: directly into electricity. It's an amazing amount of energy required

617
00:31:18,960 --> 00:31:21,560
Speaker 1: to do that. And so that also happened inside your body.

618
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: What if it created a whole generation of superheroes too,

619
00:31:25,160 --> 00:31:29,920
Speaker 1: In that's right, they can make butter like nobody before them. Well,

620
00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:33,040
Speaker 1: and it happened not just eight fifty nine, but also

621
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 1: a few times in the next couple of years. Right, Yeah,

622
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:38,600
Speaker 1: we had big events also in eighteen seventy two and

623
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:42,840
Speaker 1: ninety one, not quite as big as the original Carrington event,

624
00:31:43,240 --> 00:31:45,360
Speaker 1: but it got people curious. They're like, wait a second,

625
00:31:45,400 --> 00:31:48,000
Speaker 1: how often is this going to happen? So then people

626
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 1: started digging into the historical records and looking at like

627
00:31:51,880 --> 00:31:55,160
Speaker 1: rings of trees, really really old trees to see if

628
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:57,960
Speaker 1: you can see evidence. And they found like these cedar

629
00:31:58,040 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: trees in Japan that are super old that show evidence

630
00:32:01,480 --> 00:32:05,800
Speaker 1: that in seven hundred and seventy five, that's like hundred

631
00:32:05,920 --> 00:32:09,280
Speaker 1: years ago, there must have been this massive event because

632
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 1: it left all this extra carbon fourteen on these trees.

633
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 1: These cosmic rays hit nitrogen and broke nitrogen down into

634
00:32:17,400 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: the special form of carbon. And they think, based on

635
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:23,840
Speaker 1: the amount of carbon fourteen in these rings, that this

636
00:32:23,920 --> 00:32:26,760
Speaker 1: must have been an event ten or twenty times more

637
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:29,800
Speaker 1: powerful than this Carrington event. We're talking about a hundred

638
00:32:29,800 --> 00:32:33,560
Speaker 1: and fifty years ago. Wow, it created carbon like its

639
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:37,000
Speaker 1: split atoms here on Earth. Yeah. Absolutely, this is really

640
00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:39,680
Speaker 1: crazy intense radiation. That would be bad news if it

641
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 1: happened today. That would be very bad news if it

642
00:32:42,160 --> 00:32:45,240
Speaker 1: happened today. Absolutely, it was bad news back then, but

643
00:32:45,280 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: our civilization didn't have electricity and wasn't dependent on an

644
00:32:48,760 --> 00:32:52,120
Speaker 1: incredible infrastructure which was delicate and could be knocked out

645
00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:54,480
Speaker 1: by such an event. So you know, people got a

646
00:32:54,480 --> 00:32:56,760
Speaker 1: little sick, or maybe they've got skin cancer or whatever,

647
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:00,760
Speaker 1: but their civilization mostly survived. And looking and further back

648
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: in time and see evidence from ice cores of similar

649
00:33:04,000 --> 00:33:06,680
Speaker 1: events because again it changes the chemistry of the stuff

650
00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 1: on Earth, and we think that there was an event

651
00:33:09,240 --> 00:33:12,160
Speaker 1: like in six six b C. And then further back

652
00:33:12,240 --> 00:33:15,160
Speaker 1: in BC there we can also see evidence for these events.

653
00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:17,160
Speaker 1: So this is not not a periodic thing. It doesn't

654
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: happen on a regular cycle, but it's something that happens

655
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:22,640
Speaker 1: not too infrequently in the history of our sun. Wow,

656
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,560
Speaker 1: it like it literally scars to Earth kind of right,

657
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,479
Speaker 1: it leaves a memory of it, just like a supervolcano, right,

658
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,360
Speaker 1: will leave a layer of ash in the volcanic and

659
00:33:31,360 --> 00:33:35,040
Speaker 1: geological record. This frying from the sun will leave like

660
00:33:35,080 --> 00:33:38,280
Speaker 1: a scar on the Earth which you can see thousands

661
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:41,400
Speaker 1: of years later, like a little charring kind of All right, well,

662
00:33:41,480 --> 00:33:43,959
Speaker 1: let's get into what the consequences of something like that

663
00:33:44,040 --> 00:33:46,760
Speaker 1: happening today would be how bad would it be and

664
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:49,080
Speaker 1: what we could do about it? But first, let's take

665
00:33:49,120 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 1: another quick break, all right, Daniel, exactly how much sunscreen

666
00:34:05,040 --> 00:34:08,400
Speaker 1: would I need to survive one of these solar flares?

667
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,000
Speaker 1: Are we talking tubs? Are we talking pools of it?

668
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,080
Speaker 1: What can I do? Well? You should definitely not be

669
00:34:15,120 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: outside and it happens. You should be inside, and you

670
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:20,719
Speaker 1: know these things are powerful, but it's not like the

671
00:34:20,760 --> 00:34:27,439
Speaker 1: death star shooting away at the Earth that's gonna exploded. Right, good, good,

672
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:29,839
Speaker 1: that's a good thing. Let's just try to put people

673
00:34:29,880 --> 00:34:32,320
Speaker 1: at ease here. You know, some people are on their commute,

674
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:34,360
Speaker 1: some people are listening to this trying to fall asleep.

675
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:36,520
Speaker 1: We don't want to give anybody a nightmare. It's an

676
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:40,320
Speaker 1: incredible amount of energy and radiation, but mostly what's sensitive

677
00:34:40,320 --> 00:34:43,640
Speaker 1: to it are things that can conduct electricity because those

678
00:34:43,680 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: things absorb this energy very effectively. I mean, like the

679
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:48,840
Speaker 1: worst it could happen will happen is, you know, the

680
00:34:48,960 --> 00:34:51,600
Speaker 1: night sky might get brighter, or you know, people might

681
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 1: get a little bit of more of a suntime. But

682
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 1: we wouldn't. It wouldn't like blow us out blower atmosphere away,

683
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:00,560
Speaker 1: wouldn't like toasts have of the earth. Uh, it's not

684
00:35:00,600 --> 00:35:03,280
Speaker 1: like that scene in Terminator where she's watching the nuclear

685
00:35:03,280 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: bomb go off in her face melts or something. That's

686
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: not what's going to happen. Which which version of Terminator?

687
00:35:10,480 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 1: Oh boy, I watched the PG version. No, it's much

688
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:15,960
Speaker 1: more indirect. Like if you are the owner of an

689
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,919
Speaker 1: expensive communications satellite up in space, then probably it's gonna

690
00:35:19,960 --> 00:35:22,439
Speaker 1: get fried and you're out a few billion dollars. If

691
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:25,600
Speaker 1: you are up on your roof adjusting your telephone intended

692
00:35:25,640 --> 00:35:28,160
Speaker 1: when it happens, then you might get fried by the

693
00:35:28,239 --> 00:35:31,839
Speaker 1: shocks from something metallic. So it's mostly they're just gonna

694
00:35:31,960 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: knock out a lot of our electrical infrastructure. Why only

695
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:37,759
Speaker 1: things that are metallic, you know, Like why don't trees

696
00:35:37,800 --> 00:35:41,000
Speaker 1: get burned? Yeah, the energy can get deposited in trees also,

697
00:35:41,480 --> 00:35:43,720
Speaker 1: But you know, metals are just great ways to absorb

698
00:35:43,760 --> 00:35:46,720
Speaker 1: this energy because they have all these electrons floating around

699
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 1: in these conduction bands that can absorb this energy and

700
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:52,520
Speaker 1: start to flow. Right, these are charged particles coming in,

701
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:55,400
Speaker 1: so they're gonna like to interact with other charged particles.

702
00:35:55,440 --> 00:35:57,120
Speaker 1: So like if you have a satellite out in space,

703
00:35:57,200 --> 00:35:59,919
Speaker 1: it's gonna get all these charged particles, which is gonna

704
00:36:00,200 --> 00:36:03,400
Speaker 1: like accumulate and cost sparks and cause your circuit to

705
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:06,799
Speaker 1: just like pop and burn out. Essentially, every wire that's

706
00:36:06,800 --> 00:36:09,560
Speaker 1: going to exist everywhere is suddenly going to have much

707
00:36:09,560 --> 00:36:12,080
Speaker 1: more current in it than it was ever designed to have.

708
00:36:12,480 --> 00:36:15,440
Speaker 1: So if you have delicate chips or capacitors or whatever,

709
00:36:15,760 --> 00:36:18,359
Speaker 1: everything is suddenly going to be super high voltage. And

710
00:36:18,400 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 1: that's not good for your electronics, right, yeah, and not

711
00:36:20,880 --> 00:36:23,839
Speaker 1: good for our society, which is like so dependent right

712
00:36:23,880 --> 00:36:28,120
Speaker 1: now on phones and power grids and GPS, and that

713
00:36:28,120 --> 00:36:31,120
Speaker 1: would be bad news. Right, Like planes couldn't land, maybe

714
00:36:31,280 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 1: people would get lost on their way to the vacations.

715
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:35,920
Speaker 1: That's right. Your teslas suddenly would have no idea how

716
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:37,440
Speaker 1: to auto drive. You have to like wake up and

717
00:36:37,480 --> 00:36:42,000
Speaker 1: actually steer for yourself. Yeah, But essentially, anything that's electrical

718
00:36:42,160 --> 00:36:43,920
Speaker 1: is going to have high current passing through it, and

719
00:36:43,960 --> 00:36:47,560
Speaker 1: so anything that's on is really in danger. But if

720
00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:50,359
Speaker 1: you power things off and disconnect things, then you might

721
00:36:50,360 --> 00:36:53,440
Speaker 1: be safe. Oh really, well, if it's off, it won't

722
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 1: burn out, that's right. If you like disconnect things from

723
00:36:56,280 --> 00:36:59,160
Speaker 1: these power sources, right, then you won't get a surge. Like,

724
00:36:59,239 --> 00:37:02,240
Speaker 1: for example, if you disconnect your house from the electrical grid,

725
00:37:02,520 --> 00:37:04,080
Speaker 1: then you're not going to get a big surge of

726
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: energy because that energy comes from all that current being

727
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:09,919
Speaker 1: accumulated on those miles and miles of wire and then

728
00:37:09,960 --> 00:37:12,279
Speaker 1: being delivered to your house. But if you disconnected, then

729
00:37:12,280 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: it's just going to go to a spark on the air.

730
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:16,680
Speaker 1: I thought you meant like, the radiation will come to

731
00:37:16,760 --> 00:37:19,440
Speaker 1: my house from the sky rained down and then it

732
00:37:19,480 --> 00:37:22,279
Speaker 1: will fry my circuits. But you're saying only the things

733
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:24,640
Speaker 1: that are connected to a larger grid. Things that are

734
00:37:24,640 --> 00:37:27,920
Speaker 1: connected to a larger grid will have more intense surges.

735
00:37:28,360 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 1: But you know, everything will have something of a surge. Absolutely,

736
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:34,480
Speaker 1: So every piece of fiber, every wire out there is

737
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:36,400
Speaker 1: going to get a little bit of current. But you know,

738
00:37:36,440 --> 00:37:39,520
Speaker 1: if you disconnect things, then the wires in your microelectronics

739
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:41,800
Speaker 1: won't have a chance to accumulate as much current. I

740
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,280
Speaker 1: guess I'm worried about my phone, Daniel, I'm really concerned

741
00:37:45,280 --> 00:37:47,799
Speaker 1: here about my phone. Is my phone gonna be all right? Yes?

742
00:37:47,880 --> 00:37:49,880
Speaker 1: So if you protect your phone, you still should be

743
00:37:49,920 --> 00:37:52,920
Speaker 1: able to check Twitter. And so that's the key really

744
00:37:53,040 --> 00:37:55,600
Speaker 1: is knowing that this is going to happen. Can allow

745
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:58,120
Speaker 1: us to do what we can to protect our most

746
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:02,120
Speaker 1: delicate electronics. So the key is prediction. If you can

747
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:03,879
Speaker 1: tell this is going to happen a couple of days

748
00:38:03,880 --> 00:38:06,399
Speaker 1: in advance, or a week in advance, or a year

749
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: in advance, then you can get ready for it, right.

750
00:38:09,120 --> 00:38:11,960
Speaker 1: You can slather some sunscreen on your phone or your

751
00:38:12,440 --> 00:38:15,600
Speaker 1: you know, digital archives to protect it exactly. And that's

752
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 1: the problem is that we don't really yet have the

753
00:38:18,160 --> 00:38:21,279
Speaker 1: ability to do that. These things happen unpredictably. We don't

754
00:38:21,280 --> 00:38:22,799
Speaker 1: know when the next one is gonna be, is gonna

755
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,080
Speaker 1: be tomorrow, is it happening right now, is it going

756
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 1: to be in a hundred years. We just don't know

757
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:29,640
Speaker 1: because we don't understand the sun well enough yet. But

758
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:32,839
Speaker 1: you know, in Carrington's event, Carrington looked at the sun,

759
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:37,040
Speaker 1: saw something, then saw the consequence of that later. Couldn't

760
00:38:37,080 --> 00:38:38,799
Speaker 1: we do that now? I mean, we have telescopes, they

761
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:40,440
Speaker 1: could look at the sun and couldn't we say, oh,

762
00:38:40,440 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 1: look it's bubbling up. Maybe we should hide all of

763
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:45,760
Speaker 1: our phones. Yeah, but what Carrington saw is a solar

764
00:38:45,800 --> 00:38:49,200
Speaker 1: flare essentially, which doesn't always lead to a coronal mass ejection.

765
00:38:49,760 --> 00:38:52,799
Speaker 1: And so while it's often connected, right, and in this

766
00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:55,879
Speaker 1: case it clearly was. You can't like, you know, turn

767
00:38:55,920 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: off society every time you see a big solar flare coming,

768
00:38:58,880 --> 00:39:00,840
Speaker 1: because you're gonna get a lot of also alarms. It

769
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:03,160
Speaker 1: might be good for society though, if everyone turned up

770
00:39:03,160 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: their phones more often, just to be safe and sane

771
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: at the same time. That's right, So side wide, camp out,

772
00:39:09,680 --> 00:39:12,239
Speaker 1: everybody go camping, turn off all the lights, enjoy the

773
00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 1: stars while we let this radiation wash over us. But

774
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:16,880
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, isn't there other warning signs? You know,

775
00:39:16,880 --> 00:39:19,480
Speaker 1: if it's shooting this much plasma at us, putting it

776
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:23,480
Speaker 1: also you know, have shot light towards us as well,

777
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 1: Like wouldn't there be some sort of sign that precedes

778
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,279
Speaker 1: the actual like plasma coming to us. Yeah, And so

779
00:39:29,360 --> 00:39:31,600
Speaker 1: if we're lucky, then there's like a solar flare at

780
00:39:31,600 --> 00:39:34,720
Speaker 1: the same time pointing at us. But we don't always

781
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:36,279
Speaker 1: know that the solar flare is going to mean a

782
00:39:36,360 --> 00:39:38,839
Speaker 1: coronal mass ejection. And so we can tell we can

783
00:39:39,040 --> 00:39:41,160
Speaker 1: watch the sun. We can like point our telescopes at

784
00:39:41,200 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 1: it and look at it. We can see the kernel

785
00:39:42,960 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 1: mass ejection happen before the plasma gets to Earth, so

786
00:39:46,680 --> 00:39:48,560
Speaker 1: we can have like a day or two warning, but

787
00:39:48,640 --> 00:39:50,160
Speaker 1: it'd be nice to have more than that, right, It'd

788
00:39:50,200 --> 00:39:51,960
Speaker 1: be nice to know when these things are gonna happen,

789
00:39:52,000 --> 00:39:56,200
Speaker 1: so we can really like batten down the hatches, right, Yeah, Well,

790
00:39:56,440 --> 00:39:58,360
Speaker 1: what else are we doing about it? Are we sending

791
00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:01,359
Speaker 1: any probes out there to is maybe like catch these

792
00:40:01,360 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 1: things earlier or study the Sun more closely. We're trying

793
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:07,719
Speaker 1: to build a model of the Sun from the inside out.

794
00:40:08,000 --> 00:40:10,080
Speaker 1: We want to understand all the layers of the Sun,

795
00:40:10,440 --> 00:40:13,600
Speaker 1: you know, magnetically and all the plasma layers, and to

796
00:40:13,680 --> 00:40:16,080
Speaker 1: do that we are sending probes to get more information.

797
00:40:16,360 --> 00:40:19,359
Speaker 1: There's something called the Parker Solar Probe launched in two

798
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:23,400
Speaker 1: thousand eighteen that's gonna come within ten solar radii of

799
00:40:23,480 --> 00:40:25,760
Speaker 1: the center of the Sun and travel at like point

800
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,680
Speaker 1: oh six percent of the speed of light. It takes

801
00:40:28,680 --> 00:40:31,319
Speaker 1: these crazy dives or like zooms in towards the Sun

802
00:40:31,440 --> 00:40:33,160
Speaker 1: and then goes back around the back side of it,

803
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,160
Speaker 1: gathering as much data as you can while it goes

804
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:37,440
Speaker 1: really really fast, and then zooming back out again and

805
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 1: going around Venus for another loop. It's gonna do a

806
00:40:40,080 --> 00:40:42,319
Speaker 1: bunch of these loops, and it's gonna take a bunch

807
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: of data about what's going on close to the Sun

808
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:47,520
Speaker 1: and take pictures and measure magnetic fields. And that data

809
00:40:47,640 --> 00:40:50,480
Speaker 1: is absolutely critical for us to build our models of

810
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 1: what's going on inside the Sun, because if all you

811
00:40:53,440 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: know is what's happening really really far away, it's hard

812
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:58,000
Speaker 1: to tell what's going on inside. So the more you

813
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:00,239
Speaker 1: can get close up pictures, the more we can say, oh,

814
00:41:00,320 --> 00:41:02,600
Speaker 1: this model doesn't work, that model doesn't work, and we

815
00:41:02,640 --> 00:41:04,960
Speaker 1: can refine on models to get better predictions of what's

816
00:41:04,960 --> 00:41:07,320
Speaker 1: going on. I'm just saying it's like we have models

817
00:41:07,320 --> 00:41:09,319
Speaker 1: of the weather here on Earth that are pretty good.

818
00:41:09,880 --> 00:41:13,360
Speaker 1: Maybe we can build like a weather model of the Sun, yes, exactly,

819
00:41:13,440 --> 00:41:16,239
Speaker 1: a solar weather model, space weather model, And a lot

820
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:17,839
Speaker 1: of the models we have here on Earth are good

821
00:41:17,880 --> 00:41:21,200
Speaker 1: because we have taken data inside clouds. Is that what

822
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:23,080
Speaker 1: really is going on inside of cloud? What is the

823
00:41:23,120 --> 00:41:26,200
Speaker 1: temperature and pressure and the wind speed inside a cloud,

824
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:28,680
Speaker 1: for example, And that's helps us understand what's going on

825
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:30,480
Speaker 1: in the same way, we'd love to know what's going

826
00:41:30,520 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 1: on inside the Sun, but of course we can't actually

827
00:41:33,200 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 1: send anything into the Sun and get messages out. It's

828
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:38,520
Speaker 1: sort of like an event horizon almost, but we can

829
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:41,120
Speaker 1: send stuff close to the Sun. And so the e

830
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:43,640
Speaker 1: s A also has a project called the Solar Orbiter

831
00:41:43,960 --> 00:41:46,600
Speaker 1: launched in February that's going to go over there close

832
00:41:46,640 --> 00:41:48,840
Speaker 1: to the Sun. And we have a really cool solar

833
00:41:48,920 --> 00:41:52,080
Speaker 1: telescope that the NSF built that's looking at the Sun

834
00:41:52,120 --> 00:41:55,000
Speaker 1: and trying to get like really really fine grain images

835
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:57,719
Speaker 1: of the surface of the Sun to image these like

836
00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:00,360
Speaker 1: bubbles and loops and you know, this turbulent flow on

837
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 1: the surface of the Sun. It could be your job

838
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:06,359
Speaker 1: to look at the Sun. Basically, you could go back

839
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 1: to your parents and be like, see's totally not to

840
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:09,920
Speaker 1: look at the Sun. But I guess what I did

841
00:42:09,920 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 1: for a living. I saved the world by staring at

842
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:16,600
Speaker 1: the Sun. That's pretty cool. And I was thinking, like,

843
00:42:16,800 --> 00:42:18,760
Speaker 1: that would be cool to be the first like solar

844
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 1: weather person. You know, it sounds like an easy job

845
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:23,239
Speaker 1: to just go up up to the map and be

846
00:42:23,320 --> 00:42:26,880
Speaker 1: like today it's gonna be sunny, sunny, sunny, sunny, and

847
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:31,359
Speaker 1: more sunny and crazy Sunday tomorrow. And you know we're

848
00:42:31,360 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 1: talking about like serious radiation events and trillions of dollars

849
00:42:34,400 --> 00:42:37,520
Speaker 1: in damage to satellites and infrastructure, you know. But the

850
00:42:37,600 --> 00:42:40,280
Speaker 1: question really Colin had was is this going to wipe

851
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:43,319
Speaker 1: out humanity? And I think my answer to that one

852
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:46,240
Speaker 1: would definitely be no. Like, even if we destroyed all

853
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:49,880
Speaker 1: of our technological infrastructure, people will survive. I mean a

854
00:42:49,920 --> 00:42:54,040
Speaker 1: lot of people wouldn't, but some people would survive. Civilization

855
00:42:54,080 --> 00:42:56,760
Speaker 1: would collapse, but you know, out of the ruins, somebody

856
00:42:56,800 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 1: would still be alive, hunting two supermarkets, eating cat food

857
00:43:00,160 --> 00:43:02,720
Speaker 1: or whatever. It's not like it's going to actually literally

858
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:06,880
Speaker 1: kill everybody. Look at the bright side, that's the bright side.

859
00:43:07,320 --> 00:43:09,160
Speaker 1: Well that's the dark side of the bright side of

860
00:43:09,200 --> 00:43:11,719
Speaker 1: the sun, I guess. But I mean, you say it

861
00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:14,319
Speaker 1: won't kill humanity, but that's gonna sort of as far

862
00:43:14,360 --> 00:43:16,640
Speaker 1: as we know right just because we haven't seen a

863
00:43:16,719 --> 00:43:20,360
Speaker 1: solar flare or coronal mass ejection big enough. But is

864
00:43:20,400 --> 00:43:22,160
Speaker 1: it possible that in the future you could have like

865
00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,759
Speaker 1: a giant sunburp that does maybe wipe out half of

866
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:28,560
Speaker 1: the Earth. It's definitely possible, And we actually see that

867
00:43:28,640 --> 00:43:31,640
Speaker 1: kind of stuff happening in other stars, like our neighboring

868
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:35,279
Speaker 1: star Proximus Centauri. In two thousand nineteen, it's suddenly got

869
00:43:35,280 --> 00:43:39,240
Speaker 1: a lot brighter than normal, like fourteen thousand times brighter

870
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:42,920
Speaker 1: than usual. So it was like really intensely bright. Like

871
00:43:43,200 --> 00:43:45,960
Speaker 1: if you are on earthlike planet around Proximus Centauri at

872
00:43:46,000 --> 00:43:48,960
Speaker 1: that time, then any water molecule would have gotten like

873
00:43:49,120 --> 00:43:53,040
Speaker 1: split by the radiation. It's really like the whole star

874
00:43:53,120 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: got brighter, not just like a little burp on it. Yes,

875
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:57,840
Speaker 1: the whole star up brighter. And you know that's a

876
00:43:57,880 --> 00:44:00,239
Speaker 1: different kind of star than ours. It's a red dwarf star,

877
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,839
Speaker 1: which are known to be more volatile and have these

878
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 1: like big up swings and down swings in radiation. So

879
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:08,640
Speaker 1: it's possible though that the same kind of thing could

880
00:44:08,680 --> 00:44:10,600
Speaker 1: happen to the Sun. We don't see evidence of that

881
00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,280
Speaker 1: in the historical record dating back tens and thousands of years,

882
00:44:14,520 --> 00:44:17,400
Speaker 1: but it is possible. We don't understand the Sun very well,

883
00:44:17,400 --> 00:44:19,479
Speaker 1: and the time scales we're talking about are very long,

884
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:22,719
Speaker 1: and so it's certainly as possible the Sun could surprise us. Yeah,

885
00:44:22,800 --> 00:44:25,279
Speaker 1: it's still a relatively young son, right, Like it's not

886
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:28,480
Speaker 1: in its senior year, it's in its middle age. About

887
00:44:28,520 --> 00:44:30,960
Speaker 1: it's like five billion years old and we expect it's

888
00:44:31,000 --> 00:44:33,799
Speaker 1: gonna last to be about ten billion, so you know

889
00:44:33,840 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 1: it's halfway there. It's thinking about buying a sports car. Yeah,

890
00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:42,000
Speaker 1: it could still have some spunk to it, or unpredictability

891
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:45,800
Speaker 1: or some midlife crisis exactly. All right, Well, again another

892
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:49,439
Speaker 1: reminder of how precarious we sit in this little rock

893
00:44:49,719 --> 00:44:52,400
Speaker 1: in the middle of space. Stuff can come at us

894
00:44:52,440 --> 00:44:54,440
Speaker 1: out of the blue or out of the sun. It's

895
00:44:54,480 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: amazing that we've been comfortable and cozy long enough to

896
00:44:57,640 --> 00:45:00,080
Speaker 1: develop as much of an understanding about the universe that

897
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:03,480
Speaker 1: we have one that shows us exactly how precarious and

898
00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 1: crazy our situation is. And hopefully we can sit here

899
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:09,920
Speaker 1: staring out into the universe understanding more and more about

900
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:11,880
Speaker 1: how it might kill us. And also, I think a

901
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:14,880
Speaker 1: pretty good reminder also of how important science is and

902
00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:18,239
Speaker 1: how important it is to understand these things, because you know,

903
00:45:18,280 --> 00:45:20,719
Speaker 1: if we can have some warning about something that's coming

904
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:22,640
Speaker 1: our way, it would be good to know, right, so

905
00:45:22,680 --> 00:45:26,279
Speaker 1: we can protect things and shield ourselves and turn off

906
00:45:26,320 --> 00:45:28,600
Speaker 1: our phones just in time. That's right. More than just

907
00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:31,680
Speaker 1: understanding why we are dying, it might actually prevent it

908
00:45:31,840 --> 00:45:34,400
Speaker 1: so that we can rest easy and keep checking Twitter.

909
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:37,360
Speaker 1: That's right at the beach, reading papers and getting a

910
00:45:37,440 --> 00:45:39,600
Speaker 1: nice tent. All right, Well, we hope you enjoyed that.

911
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:50,880
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us, See you next time. Thanks for listening,

912
00:45:50,880 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 1: and remember that Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe is

913
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:57,120
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. Or more podcast from

914
00:45:57,160 --> 00:46:00,920
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

915
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:03,360
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.