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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I

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Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.

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Speaker 1: There's Charles w Chuck, Brian over there, and Jerry's not here.

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Speaker 1: But we're going to make it through somehow, uh, in

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Speaker 1: this edition of Stuff You Should Know. Um, I'm going

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Speaker 1: to call this one Chuck the Icarus Edition, because we

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Speaker 1: made it through the Sun Podcast just hanging on by

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Speaker 1: our fingernails before and through just an astounding act of hubris.

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Speaker 1: We're going to do another Sun related episode. Yeah. We

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Speaker 1: talked about a lot of this stuff in the Sun one.

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Speaker 1: Yeah we did, but I don't think we went anywhere

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Speaker 1: near into this kind of detail. So I'm feeling okay

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Speaker 1: about redoing this, doing something that that's like kind of

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Speaker 1: a re redo a little bit. Okay, are you feeling okay?

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Speaker 1: I'm feeling great. Oh good, I'm glad to hear that.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if I would say I'm feeling great,

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Speaker 1: but that's good that you are at least so. Um,

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Speaker 1: we're talking about the Sun, believe it or not, and

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Speaker 1: we're talking about a specific thing on the Sun called

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Speaker 1: solar flares, which you may have heard of, but you

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Speaker 1: may not know much about unless apparently you've already listened

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Speaker 1: to our Sun episode. But um, we'll talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about solar flawers. But one of the things that

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Speaker 1: that I think is extraordinarily interesting about solar flowers is

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Speaker 1: they belong to a larger category called space weather. And

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Speaker 1: I am just as jazz as can be about the

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Speaker 1: idea of space weather, aren't you? Uh not as jazz

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Speaker 1: as you, I don't think, but I do think this

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Speaker 1: is this is pretty neat stuff, and I'm glad we're

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Speaker 1: we're getting a chance to make it more clear than

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Speaker 1: we did before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a good that's

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Speaker 1: a good point. I'm sure we talked about this before,

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Speaker 1: but it's probably extremely confusing. So yeah, we're going to

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Speaker 1: clear all that up. So space weather, especially stuff that

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Speaker 1: comes from the Sun, come mostly from the surface or

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Speaker 1: the atmosphere of the Sun, which is extraordinarily active. It's

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Speaker 1: extraordinarily hot, so hot, chuck. Um that the surface of

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Speaker 1: the Sun is made of plasma, which a lot of

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Speaker 1: people consider the fourth state of matter. It's like a gas,

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Speaker 1: but it's a special kind of gas that um where

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Speaker 1: the particles are as jazzed about being alive as I

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Speaker 1: am about the idea of space weather. That's right. They're

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Speaker 1: supercharged and when they are moving around, they create something

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Speaker 1: called metic magnetic fields. Not the band, the thing, even

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Speaker 1: though it is a great band name and a great band. Uh,

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Speaker 1: and they are gonna you know, magnetic fields have their

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Speaker 1: own effect on all these particles and what's going on

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Speaker 1: in there. Yeah. So the the energetic electrons that have

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Speaker 1: been stripped from the atoms, creating electrons and ions which

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Speaker 1: have a charge, they create magnetic fields, and then the

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Speaker 1: magnetic fields they create have an effect on them, um

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Speaker 1: so that they tend to follow these magnetic field lines.

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Speaker 1: But the the stuff is so energetic and so hot

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Speaker 1: that the magnetic fields that develop aren't like this kind

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Speaker 1: of orderly lines that keep their distance, you know, nice

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Speaker 1: and tidy like you imagine like a magnetic field to exist.

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Speaker 1: Like these things are like roiling, curling, twisting. It's just

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Speaker 1: a big orgy of magnetism up there. That's the only

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Speaker 1: way to put it. That's it. I had no choice

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Speaker 1: but to say it like that. Yeah, and then, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, this stuff is going on. It's called solar activity,

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Speaker 1: and it depends on when you're observing the Sun, it's

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Speaker 1: going to be more or less active. There's a there's

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Speaker 1: a cycle, it's called the solar cycle that happens about

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Speaker 1: every eleven years when the magnetic north and south pole switch.

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Speaker 1: And within that cycle, UM, there's something called a solar maximum,

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Speaker 1: which is the period kind of where the biggest show

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Speaker 1: is going on. Yeah, there's also a solar minimum, but

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Speaker 1: the solar maximum is UM. We're in solar cycle twenty

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Speaker 1: five apparently, and the solar maximum is coming up on

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Speaker 1: in two thousand. That's very appropriately UM. And so as

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Speaker 1: we're reaching the solar maximum, there's gonna be a lot

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Speaker 1: more of what people call sun spots. By people, I

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Speaker 1: mean astronomers, of course, um. And sun spots are these

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Speaker 1: kind of darkish areas on the surface of the Sun.

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Speaker 1: They can be little, tiny dots, they can be kind

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Speaker 1: of big, but they look really really small and they

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Speaker 1: look dark. UM. And the reason they look dark is

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Speaker 1: because they're relatively cool compared to the rest of the

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Speaker 1: surface that's around them. Um. But even still, they're super

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Speaker 1: duper hot and they're still pretty bright comparatively speaking. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Like a sun spot is about degrees fahrenheit. Because we're

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Speaker 1: talking about the sun so cool is a relative term here. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And as far as bright goes, it's about that's about

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Speaker 1: ten times as bright as a full moon. So if

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Speaker 1: you go out at night in a full moon and

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Speaker 1: it kind of feels like a little cool daylight, a

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Speaker 1: sun spot is about ten times brighter than that. Right,

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Speaker 1: So you shouldn't go looking at these things. No, No,

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Speaker 1: that's a really good thing to say. Is like, we're

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Speaker 1: talking about a lot of stuff that's gonna make you

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Speaker 1: want to look at the sun. Don't do it. Just

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Speaker 1: go online and look at pictures of this stuff on

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Speaker 1: the sun or videos even we have videos thanks to

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Speaker 1: the good people at NASA, but um, the sun spots,

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Speaker 1: So it really just goes to show you how hot

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Speaker 1: and bright the surface of the Sun is. That these

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Speaker 1: things seem cool and dark by comparisons. And yeah, and

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Speaker 1: they are really really big, So the width of them

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Speaker 1: can get to be up to thirty thous miles across,

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Speaker 1: which is about the width of Neptune, which is huge,

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Speaker 1: about four times the width of Earth. Um, and still

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Speaker 1: they look super dinky compared to the Sun. And the

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Speaker 1: reason that these things are cooler, chuck, is because they're

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Speaker 1: spots of magnetism that are so strong that they keep

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Speaker 1: the heat inside the Sun from poking out right there.

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Speaker 1: That's how strong the magnetic energy is in these areas. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's right. And because they're magnets, they form in

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Speaker 1: little pairs like little buddies, and they appear on the

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Speaker 1: surface of the Sun. And what we're actually looking at

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Speaker 1: if you can like go to uh NASA or whatever,

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Speaker 1: like you said, and see a picture of a sun spot,

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Speaker 1: what you're looking at is sort of like the two

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Speaker 1: ends of um. If you think about these magnetic lines there,

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Speaker 1: these magnetism it's like a filament like a rope. Just

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Speaker 1: picture them twisted up basically running beneath the sun surface.

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Speaker 1: And there are some really really cool pictures and stuff.

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Speaker 1: And then one end of this sun spot is positive,

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Speaker 1: the other end is negative, and it's they sort of

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Speaker 1: act like rings of a tree a little bit. As

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Speaker 1: far as astronomers can like observe these things. The first

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Speaker 1: sun spots of each cycle are in the midd latitudes

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Speaker 1: and then they start moving around during the cycle, so

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Speaker 1: they can kind of see where you are in the

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Speaker 1: solar cycle by where and how many of these sun

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Speaker 1: spots there are. Yeah, so the more the closer to

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Speaker 1: the solar maximum you are, the more sun spots they're

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Speaker 1: going to be, and the closer they're going to be

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Speaker 1: to the equator. So they tell a lot about where

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Speaker 1: where the Sun is in its solar cycle. Um. But

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Speaker 1: the thing is when these magnetic field lines twists and

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Speaker 1: and curve and turn, um, they actually can interact with

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Speaker 1: other magnetic field lines. And when that happens, when they cross,

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Speaker 1: kind of like the proton streams crossing in Ghostbusters. When

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Speaker 1: that happens, UM, something called the solar flare, uh happens.

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Speaker 1: It's a it's an event on the Sun, and it

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Speaker 1: is such a huge, magnificently energetic event that it actually

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Speaker 1: can affect Earth things on Earth because it's just so

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Speaker 1: massive in such a huge release and sudden release of energy.

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Speaker 1: I had a Ghostbusters ref penciled end later on if

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Speaker 1: you believe that. Oh, I can't wait to it's been

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Speaker 1: a long time, when we both have to we have

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Speaker 1: one each. Um, Yeah, it has. And it's been a

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Speaker 1: while since we listed dates by the years before since

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Speaker 1: Ghostbusters came in. Mind has a data attached to it,

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Speaker 1: and you'll just have to wait. I can't wait. What

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Speaker 1: a great episode this is shaping out to be. So

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Speaker 1: these explosions, the magnetic fields are driving these explosions. And

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Speaker 1: if you you know, if you're lay people like us,

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Speaker 1: it's you can either look at this is something that's

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Speaker 1: kind of simple to look at on its surface, or

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Speaker 1: if you really want to get into it, it's pretty

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Speaker 1: complex and not easily understood. But the simple answer is,

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Speaker 1: because we're talking about magnetic fields, is that these adjacent

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Speaker 1: fields are pointing in opposite directions and they basically wipe

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Speaker 1: each other out and that releases all this magnetic energy

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Speaker 1: and all that heat, uh, kind of everywhere that surrounds it.

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Speaker 1: It just goes spew spew, spew energy heat shooting at

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Speaker 1: you from the sun. Right, So people have figured this out.

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Speaker 1: Finally that has to do with, like um, the lines

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Speaker 1: of magnetism interacting with one another and annihilating one another.

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Speaker 1: But there's a big mystery attached to this, or there

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Speaker 1: there was for many many years, and that is that. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so we understand magnetic annihilation. But to this point, we

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Speaker 1: thought it took about ten thousand years for two opposite

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Speaker 1: magnetic fields to annihilate one another. Well, we're talking about here,

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Speaker 1: these solar flares. They they annihilate one another and release

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Speaker 1: all this energy in a matter of minutes, maybe an

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Speaker 1: hour sometimes, So that doesn't quite job. And I think

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Speaker 1: back in the fifties some scientists started proposing a type

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Speaker 1: of magnetic energy released called magnetic reconnection. And that is

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Speaker 1: where magnetic field lines are so um twisty, turney writhey

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Speaker 1: and energetic that they can actually rip a field line

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Speaker 1: or like a magnetic field line can rip a part

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Speaker 1: and then reconnect with some neighbors. When that happens, it's

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Speaker 1: called magnetic reconnection. And they think that that is the

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Speaker 1: kind of energetic release that would account for a solar flare. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and this, you know, this can cause all kinds of problems,

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Speaker 1: um for things in space and for people on Earth

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Speaker 1: even which we'll get to that stuff in more detail

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Speaker 1: a little bit later. But the point is these things

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Speaker 1: are super hot. Uh. They burst out to the Sun's corona, which,

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Speaker 1: if you remember from our Sun Up episode, that's the

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Speaker 1: outermost atmosphere of the Sun. Rarefied gas is all over

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Speaker 1: the place out there, and it has I mean, this

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Speaker 1: is super super hot stuff. Like normally the temperature and

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Speaker 1: the corona is about you know, a few million degrees kelvin,

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Speaker 1: but inside that flare, we're talking ten to twenty million

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Speaker 1: degrees kelvin. And we always like to uh think of

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Speaker 1: things in terms of either big max or hydrogen bombs,

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Speaker 1: and in this case, it's got to be hydrogen bombs.

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Speaker 1: The amount of energy released during a solar flare is

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Speaker 1: about um it's millions of one hundred ton hydrogen bombs

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Speaker 1: all at once. Yeah, all at once. That's a really

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Speaker 1: that's a really important point too, you know, And I

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Speaker 1: feel like a real schmo for not having calculated that

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Speaker 1: in big bags calories. I know you could do calories, yeah,

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Speaker 1: but what's the calorie of a solar flare. I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I didn't look and I feel like a jackass for

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Speaker 1: not having looked. Well, they go down easy, I know

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Speaker 1: that they do. So they're big, huge releases of energy,

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Speaker 1: and they're they're releases of radiation. They release um radiation

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Speaker 1: across the electromagnetic spectrum and that includes the visible light spectrum.

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Speaker 1: So these things just turned into these enormously bright flares,

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Speaker 1: which is where the name comes from. And we've figured

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Speaker 1: out how to classify, and there's a classifying system for

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Speaker 1: solar flares. It's a lot like the Richter scale UM,

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Speaker 1: and that there's class A, B, C, M, and X.

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Speaker 1: That's not really like the Richter scale. What's like the

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Speaker 1: Richter scale is that each of those classes UH is

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Speaker 1: ten times more powerful than the previous class. Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: like an X is the highest, that is ten times

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Speaker 1: ten times in M, a hundred times of C. And

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Speaker 1: then once you get to X, uh. You know, if

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Speaker 1: they didn't go Y and Z, they just said, let's

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Speaker 1: stick with X and then let's cool. Sure, and it

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Speaker 1: sounds totally cool, and then let's start attaching numbers to

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Speaker 1: them so you can have you know, X, one, three,

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Speaker 1: four and so on. Yeah, and so you know, each

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Speaker 1: each of those letter grades has a one through nine scale,

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Speaker 1: but X is so huge the excess scale goes beyond nine.

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Speaker 1: And I think the biggest, the biggest one that they've

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Speaker 1: ever caught so far, UM that's ever been recorded. UH

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Speaker 1: burned out the set answers that were recording it, and

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Speaker 1: the censors UM were overloaded at X eight And they

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Speaker 1: did some calculations after the fact and they figured out

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Speaker 1: that they may have been an X forty five flare.

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Speaker 1: Back on November four, two thousand three. Yeah, this was

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Speaker 1: a big deal. This was it was something called the

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Speaker 1: Halloween Storms of two thousand three, which is kind of

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Speaker 1: a fun way. Uh, you know, it happened because it

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Speaker 1: was in October and near Halloween. So while the astronomers

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Speaker 1: got excited. And this one was a little bit weird

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Speaker 1: because although it was near the solar maximum, it was

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Speaker 1: two to three years after the peak, and it was

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Speaker 1: they said, NASA said it's generally a quiet period, so

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Speaker 1: they got really really excited. There were seventeen major flares

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Speaker 1: in that uh Halloween storm, and it was that's something

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Speaker 1: that is really going to get the white coats pretty

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Speaker 1: charged up. It totally is I mean an X forty

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Speaker 1: five that's just funding And I did a little bit

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Speaker 1: of of derivative calculation. Technically it would be a double

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Speaker 1: A five A five, you know. I saw weird different

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Speaker 1: numbers too, though. I saw that the center cut out

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Speaker 1: at fifteen and the estimate was X. Huh. It's really hard.

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Speaker 1: It's NASSY even had conflicting information. I think we should

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Speaker 1: point this out that you just set us up for

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Speaker 1: a c o A that I wanted to include. So

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Speaker 1: there's two things. Um, there's a lot of disagreement on

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Speaker 1: exactly what a solar flare is and the difference between

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Speaker 1: that and coronal mass ejections, which we'll talk about in

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Speaker 1: a little bit. And it's not necessarily a disagreement in astronomy, um.

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Speaker 1: It's a disagreement among people who report on stuff like

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Speaker 1: astronomy and don't fully understand what they're talking about. So

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Speaker 1: we ran into that quite a bit. So if we

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Speaker 1: get something mixed up, please forgive us. And then secondly,

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Speaker 1: when we're talking about some of these incredible um events

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Speaker 1: in physics terms, people who are in the field of

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Speaker 1: physics understand what they're talking about to one another, but

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Speaker 1: they have a great reputation of not figuring out how

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Speaker 1: to explain it to the rest of us, and so

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Speaker 1: they'll put it in different terms. And so when you're

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Speaker 1: researching this stuff, you're like, are you is this describing

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Speaker 1: a different thing than this over here or is it

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Speaker 1: just two different people describing the same thing two different

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Speaker 1: ways because they're not describing it in the true physics

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Speaker 1: way because I wouldn't understand. So we ran into that

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Speaker 1: a lot too, did you. Yeah, And it's frustrating to

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Speaker 1: literally see two different things both from NASA dot gov

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Speaker 1: on two different pages. But you know, who are we

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Speaker 1: too to call out NASA? I think we just did.

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Speaker 1: We'll call out Space Force, sure. But the point is this,

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Speaker 1: all of that really underscores the fact that our understanding

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Speaker 1: of the dynamics on the Sun are still really early

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Speaker 1: and premature, um, and we're still figuring a lot of

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Speaker 1: stuff out, including classifying the differences between solar flares and

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Speaker 1: coronal mass ejections. Yeah, and the light show and the

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Speaker 1: you know, the fund that the astronomers had in the

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Speaker 1: Halloween storms of two thousand three was immense, no matter

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Speaker 1: whether it was x X forty partied either way, they

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Speaker 1: did they surely did check. They had a little bit

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Speaker 1: of peach snops and went to tasted some half a

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Speaker 1: shot of brandy and then went to bed. That's right.

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Speaker 1: Prove us wrong, nerds, prove us wrong. I say, we

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Speaker 1: take a break and then come back and talk about

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Speaker 1: those coronal mass ejections that I teased. Okay, we'll be

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Speaker 1: right back, everybody, m all right. So I was saying

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Speaker 1: that it's difficult sometimes to discern the difference between a

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Speaker 1: solar flare, which is a huge burst of radiation across

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Speaker 1: the electromagnetic spectrum um all at once, which, by the way,

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Speaker 1: it takes just a matter of minutes eight minutes to

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Speaker 1: be exact to reach Earth because we're talking about carriers

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Speaker 1: of the electromagnetic force, which can travel at the speed

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Speaker 1: of light. So it's where I guess, eight minutes, but

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Speaker 1: at the speed of light from the Sun, right. Um.

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Speaker 1: Coronal mass ejections are something different. Even though they seem

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Speaker 1: to be associated with solar flares in a lot of cases,

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Speaker 1: they also seem to be able to kind of stand

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Speaker 1: on their own too. Either way, they're impressive in their

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Speaker 1: own right for sure. Yeah, I mean, I think if

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Speaker 1: you were talking in terms of um visual excitement, like

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Speaker 1: a solar mass I'm sorry, a coronal mass ejection is

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Speaker 1: like a full on Grateful Dead concert, whereas a solar

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Speaker 1: flair is like when John Mayer played with members of

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Speaker 1: the Grateful Dead. Oh that's mean I was gonna say

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Speaker 1: it was. It's just an Instagram video lesson of John

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Speaker 1: Mayor teaching you some Grateful Dead lick because you know well,

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Speaker 1: but sol solar flares are more magnificent than that. Um,

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Speaker 1: so man, that's mean. Sorry, Sorry, John Mayor. If you're listening.

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Speaker 1: I'm not sorry, Josh. Sorry. He uh he's a nice guy,

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Speaker 1: he apparently, uh has I've seen some stuff like of

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Speaker 1: him teaching like people how to play Grateful Dead guitar

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Speaker 1: stuff and it's really really hard what he's doing. So

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Speaker 1: my hats off, right, So with man, I feel weird.

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Speaker 1: It just apologized to John Mayer on the stuff you

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Speaker 1: should know ast about solar flares. You didn't see that coming. No,

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Speaker 1: it wasn't in my notes. So with coronal mass ejections

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Speaker 1: at least these these are not necessarily just bursts of

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Speaker 1: um of radiation like a solar flare is these they

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Speaker 1: do have some radiation attached, but they're big thing is

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Speaker 1: um particles, highly charged, super energetic particles that it shoots

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Speaker 1: like buckshot towards the Earth at incredible speeds. I mean,

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Speaker 1: they get they get accelerated very close to the speed

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Speaker 1: of light, not the speed of light, and there's a

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Speaker 1: big difference between the speed of light and close to

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Speaker 1: the speed of light. So it takes about three or

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Speaker 1: four days usually for stuff um that's shot out by

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Speaker 1: a coronal mass ejection to reach Earth. But when these

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Speaker 1: things go off on the Sun, there like you said,

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Speaker 1: they're they're rather impressive. Yeah, like if you were looking

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Speaker 1: at this stuff and uh with a telescope and high

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Speaker 1: powered telescope that is I don't I don't think you

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Speaker 1: could well could you see any of this stuff anything

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Speaker 1: you have at home? You know, I've got a pretty

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Speaker 1: good telescope, but it's for nighttime viewing only. So with

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Speaker 1: the UM, I think you can see coronal mass ejections.

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Speaker 1: I think solar flares. You're you're best with a radio

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Speaker 1: telescope or X ray telescope, but the X ray telescope

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Speaker 1: would have to be outside of Earth's magnetosphere. Do you

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Speaker 1: have a telescope, yeah, telescope. It's not a radio telescope.

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Speaker 1: No, no no, no, I just we've never talked, we've never

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Speaker 1: scoped it up in conversation, and I would be surprised

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Speaker 1: if you didn't, but I'm glad to know you do.

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Speaker 1: We do have one. Yea so flares, Like if you

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Speaker 1: were looking through an X ray or a radio telescope

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Speaker 1: at a solar flare, it'll look cool, It'll look like

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Speaker 1: a flash of light. But those coronal mass ejections are

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Speaker 1: really impressive, big eruptions. Uh, the height can be many

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Speaker 1: times the size of the Earth, shooting out into space,

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Speaker 1: like you said, and they're they're kind of like a

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Speaker 1: belch from the Sun that actually releases part of the Sun.

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Speaker 1: It's like a bubble of plasma that's just an enormous

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Speaker 1: um often billions and billions of tons uh in mass,

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Speaker 1: just coming right at the Earth, full of these incredibly

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Speaker 1: charged particles UM. And they're so big, so massive, and

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Speaker 1: the plasma that they're made of is so energetic that

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Speaker 1: they actually have their own magnetic fields like the sawn

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Speaker 1: or the Earth UM. So when they finally do come

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Speaker 1: in contact with the planet, our planet UM, weird things

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Speaker 1: start to happen because it's own magnetic field and all

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Speaker 1: of the charged particles within the plasma contact our own

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Speaker 1: magnetosphere and then also our atmosphere UM, which is almost

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Speaker 1: designed to UM to deter the worst effects of those

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Speaker 1: things coming at us from the Sun. Yeah, so our magnetosphere,

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Speaker 1: that's our little first layer of protection. That would be

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Speaker 1: like UM, although I was about to say like Wakonda's

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Speaker 1: protective shield, that may be more like the ionosphere. But

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Speaker 1: the magnetosphere is that first protect and and it's going

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Speaker 1: to kind of brush away as many of those charge particles,

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Speaker 1: these protons that are shooting out as possible, and because

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Speaker 1: of solar wind though, uh, it's it's it's got a

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Speaker 1: shape to it. The magnetosphere has like a sort of

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Speaker 1: a compressed side that faces the Sun. It's got a

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Speaker 1: little dip near the poles of the Earth where some

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Speaker 1: really magnificent stuff is going to take place, as we'll

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Speaker 1: see in a minute. And then it's got this tail

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Speaker 1: end that flows out from the back, and the Earth's

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Speaker 1: magnetic field is going to block these particles from most

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Speaker 1: of the surface. The Sun's the solar wind is going

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Speaker 1: to push them along toward that tail and then that

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Speaker 1: dip at the poles is where you're gonna see these

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Speaker 1: really brilliant auroras. Yes, but the magnetism, the magnetic energy

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Speaker 1: from the coronal mass ejection can be so energetic that

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Speaker 1: it can actually push on the sun side, the day

385
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Speaker 1: side of the Earth's magnetosphere it's closest to the Sun,

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Speaker 1: push on it so much that it actually contorts the

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Speaker 1: Night's the tail end that trails off into space and

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Speaker 1: presses it together so that when it comes together the

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Speaker 1: Earth's own magnetosphere um becomes energetic and quivery and then

390
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Speaker 1: when it goes back to its normal energy state, it

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Speaker 1: releases a bunch of energy in the form of light.

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Speaker 1: And when that happens, the auroras that tend to congregated

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Speaker 1: the polls can actually show up all over the planet basically,

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Speaker 1: even very close to the equator. Yeah, which is crazy.

395
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Speaker 1: And we'll talk about some of the bigger ones and

396
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Speaker 1: some of the surprising places they showed up. But um,

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Speaker 1: so that's a magnetosphere. I mentioned the ionosphere. That's sort

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Speaker 1: of um, I guess the secondary protection that is another

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Speaker 1: high layer of the Earth's atmosphere, and that's going to

400
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Speaker 1: stop all the radiation because it's giving out a tremendous

401
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Speaker 1: amount of radiation. And if the ionosphere wasn't doing his

402
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Speaker 1: job and it wasn't there, we would be in big,

403
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Speaker 1: big trouble. Oh yeah, we we'd be toast. I mean, like,

404
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Speaker 1: these are incredibly energetic, fast traveling particles close to the

405
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Speaker 1: speed of light um and they would just shoot right

406
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Speaker 1: through the tissue in our our bodies, uh and do

407
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Speaker 1: all sorts of damage because they would probably knock all

408
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Speaker 1: sorts of electrons off of our atoms that make up

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Speaker 1: our cells and our tissue and um, we would either

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Speaker 1: develop cancer of the long term or just drop dead

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Speaker 1: from a big enough dose of the stuff. So thank

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Speaker 1: goodness for the ionosphere. I mean, it saves us like

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Speaker 1: John Mayor saved the grateful dead. Just in case he's

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Speaker 1: still listening. There's like a percentage of our audience it's like, yeah, man, preach,

415
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Speaker 1: and there's a percentage that was like, oh my god,

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Speaker 1: I have to turn this off. And then I'd say

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Speaker 1: the vast majority are like American exactly, the guy that

418
00:24:47,000 --> 00:24:54,840
Speaker 1: dated Jen Aniston probably. Um. So you've got the magnanosphere,

419
00:24:54,920 --> 00:24:57,440
Speaker 1: you got the ionosphere, and for the most part, these

420
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:00,040
Speaker 1: things are capable of absorbing the worst of the on

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00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:06,040
Speaker 1: belches and flare ups and everything, um, under normal circumstances.

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Speaker 1: But even even when it is protecting life on Earth

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Speaker 1: like us animals and the plants and the plankton and

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Speaker 1: you know, um, the whales, that kind of stuff life

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Speaker 1: here on Earth. Um, there are things that we humans

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Speaker 1: have developed that can be affected by these this space weather,

427
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:30,760
Speaker 1: by these geomagnetic storms. Yeah, I guess should we talk

428
00:25:30,800 --> 00:25:34,480
Speaker 1: about the the Carrington event one of the most exciting events.

429
00:25:35,119 --> 00:25:38,040
Speaker 1: I thought it was pretty exciting. Yes, it's pretty good. So, uh,

430
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: this is eighteen fifty nine. Um, like this kind of

431
00:25:41,560 --> 00:25:44,440
Speaker 1: thing now is pretty magnificent, But I imagine eighteen fifty

432
00:25:44,520 --> 00:25:48,720
Speaker 1: nine astronomers were just really really knocked out by something

433
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:53,800
Speaker 1: like this. They said, zeus is beer exactly. Uh. This

434
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,280
Speaker 1: is sort of late summer August September and a big

435
00:25:56,280 --> 00:26:00,200
Speaker 1: solar storm they later called the Carrington event became him

436
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 1: the strongest one on record. And this is named for

437
00:26:04,840 --> 00:26:08,120
Speaker 1: a man named Richard Carrington. He was an astronomer, one

438
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:11,199
Speaker 1: of England's best at the time, and he was in

439
00:26:11,280 --> 00:26:14,320
Speaker 1: his observatory and he was hanging out and it was

440
00:26:14,320 --> 00:26:16,960
Speaker 1: a sunny day and he was working with his telescope

441
00:26:17,280 --> 00:26:20,320
Speaker 1: and he's projecting this image of the sun on a

442
00:26:20,400 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: screen and drawing. He there were cameras at the time,

443
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:28,480
Speaker 1: but I guess the most I don't know, accurate or

444
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:31,280
Speaker 1: efficient way to capture what he saw was to draw

445
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:33,919
Speaker 1: this stuff that he's observing, and that's what he was

446
00:26:33,960 --> 00:26:38,800
Speaker 1: doing on September one. Yeah, and while he was drawing

447
00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:41,680
Speaker 1: the stuff, um, he saw that some of these sun

448
00:26:41,720 --> 00:26:45,080
Speaker 1: spots that he was he was um mapping, I guess,

449
00:26:45,880 --> 00:26:49,240
Speaker 1: started to grow really really bright and he got really

450
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:51,320
Speaker 1: excited because he'd been doing this for a while and

451
00:26:51,359 --> 00:26:53,639
Speaker 1: this wasn't something he'd seen before. So he jumped up

452
00:26:53,640 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 1: and he ran to get a friend who was going

453
00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,040
Speaker 1: to witness this mistake. Yeah, he said. He was gone

454
00:26:58,040 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 1: for a minute tops. When he came back, he found

455
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:03,720
Speaker 1: that these brilliant flashes of light had already started to

456
00:27:03,800 --> 00:27:07,080
Speaker 1: like weakend. Can you imagine. He was a little bummed

457
00:27:07,119 --> 00:27:09,840
Speaker 1: about this, but he and he and his buddy still

458
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:12,679
Speaker 1: watched these flares like go, you know, get lower and

459
00:27:12,720 --> 00:27:16,560
Speaker 1: lower and then turn into pinpoints and then vanish. Um.

460
00:27:16,680 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 1: So what he saw he was the first person to

461
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:22,880
Speaker 1: record a solar flare. No one had ever seen anything

462
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 1: like it before. And that was at eleven three am.

463
00:27:27,359 --> 00:27:31,879
Speaker 1: It was, it was done, It finished, um and then nothing.

464
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:35,439
Speaker 1: That was it until the wee hours of the morning,

465
00:27:35,640 --> 00:27:39,000
Speaker 1: later that night, the morning of the next day, later

466
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:42,359
Speaker 1: that night, which I always just find endlessly confusing. What

467
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:45,560
Speaker 1: that it took that long? No that it's the next

468
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:48,639
Speaker 1: that night is the next morning. For some reason, it

469
00:27:48,760 --> 00:27:52,320
Speaker 1: just breaks my brain every time. I realized how sad

470
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:55,720
Speaker 1: that is to admit. Yeah, so in the wee hours,

471
00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:59,080
Speaker 1: the skies put on a light show all over the

472
00:27:59,119 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: earth redan purple auroras, very brilliant, very exciting newspapers. You

473
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:07,399
Speaker 1: could like read the newspaper at night. They saw this

474
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:12,000
Speaker 1: stuff in the Hawaii El Salvador and the Bahamas. They

475
00:28:12,000 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 1: saw the auroras in the boat that nuts. That is nuts. Uh.

476
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:20,439
Speaker 1: There were towns neighboring towns that thought the that like

477
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 1: Shelbyville was on fire, Springfield thought Shelby Bill was on fire,

478
00:28:23,760 --> 00:28:26,560
Speaker 1: and vice versa. There were birds chirping, they thought because

479
00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:29,560
Speaker 1: they thought it was dawn. Uh. There was a brick

480
00:28:29,640 --> 00:28:33,199
Speaker 1: mason crew in South Carolina that got up in you know,

481
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: they were like two beers in going to work when

482
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:39,640
Speaker 1: they realized that, hey, it's the middle of the night.

483
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: And they looked at each other and said, man, this

484
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:45,480
Speaker 1: is a hundred and twenty five years before Ghostbusters. Oh nice,

485
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:50,240
Speaker 1: very nice. Check. Yeah, well it seemed canned in because

486
00:28:50,480 --> 00:28:53,480
Speaker 1: I prem, yeah, well i'll tell you what, how about this.

487
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a huge hearty surprise laugh. And

488
00:28:56,400 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: I hinted out the conversation before all right ready, And

489
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:01,520
Speaker 1: they all looked at each other, two beers in, and

490
00:29:01,560 --> 00:29:04,520
Speaker 1: said Ghostbusters won't even come out for another hundred twenty

491
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:08,880
Speaker 1: five years. What. Oh my god, I did not see

492
00:29:08,920 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 1: that coming. Dude, how long has it been since we

493
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: talked about I don't know. That's perfect and we'll just

494
00:29:13,800 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 1: fix that all on editing. That's great, thanks, Chuck. I

495
00:29:17,480 --> 00:29:20,200
Speaker 1: need a I need a couple of beers myself after them.

496
00:29:21,040 --> 00:29:23,440
Speaker 1: So one of the other things, um, that really went

497
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 1: hey wire was the telegraph system, right, because this is

498
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:29,040
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine, and the telegraphs were at the they

499
00:29:29,080 --> 00:29:33,280
Speaker 1: were the leading edge, not bleeding edge. He's taught me

500
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:36,600
Speaker 1: that that's totally wrong, the leading edge of technology of

501
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:41,440
Speaker 1: telecommunications at the time, UM. And these telegraph lines depended

502
00:29:41,480 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 1: on currents being sent over wires, UM. And so those

503
00:29:46,040 --> 00:29:50,760
Speaker 1: wires were overloaded by this geomagnetic storm so much so

504
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:55,120
Speaker 1: that sparks were shooting off of the telegraphs. UM. Operators

505
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:59,160
Speaker 1: were getting shocked and burned. The telegraph paper was catching

506
00:29:59,200 --> 00:30:03,320
Speaker 1: on fire when was nearby. It was very much like

507
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 1: a movie. All this is happening all over the world

508
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 1: at the same time. It's just crazy. It's like very

509
00:30:08,200 --> 00:30:12,160
Speaker 1: very early morning of the next day after the Carrington event, right.

510
00:30:13,560 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: So one of the things that got me was, um,

511
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 1: they they unplugged the batteries to these things, the telegraphs,

512
00:30:22,280 --> 00:30:26,560
Speaker 1: and they found that the wires were still so energetic

513
00:30:26,800 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: with electricity from the geomagnetic storm that they could still

514
00:30:30,080 --> 00:30:34,040
Speaker 1: send telegraphs even though they had no power of their own.

515
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,200
Speaker 1: They were they were able to send telegrams over the

516
00:30:37,240 --> 00:30:40,840
Speaker 1: telegraph line even within it's disconnected from the batteries. That's

517
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 1: the fact of the show to me. Oh that's amazing.

518
00:30:44,000 --> 00:30:45,719
Speaker 1: Let me that. I mean, they must have thought it

519
00:30:45,800 --> 00:30:51,480
Speaker 1: was haunted or something. I think, think like, sure, the

520
00:30:51,520 --> 00:30:54,640
Speaker 1: plug is unplugged and it's still working. They're like Zeus's

521
00:30:54,720 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: beard is crazy. There's another thing to um. Some telegraph

522
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 1: operator couldn't send telegraphs even though the lines were active

523
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: because the magnetism in these currents was so strong that

524
00:31:08,480 --> 00:31:10,680
Speaker 1: the armature, the thing that they tap up and down,

525
00:31:11,040 --> 00:31:14,560
Speaker 1: was like fused to the plate beneath it. It was

526
00:31:14,640 --> 00:31:17,160
Speaker 1: just the magnets. The magnetism was so strong and it

527
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 1: wouldn't move. Thought it was possessed. The probably left the

528
00:31:22,480 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: room screaming. They did, says is Beard. Oh we got

529
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:32,160
Speaker 1: the third one in there. Yeah. Should we take another break? Yeah?

530
00:31:33,120 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 1: Oh almost so. So one other thing. Let's just wrap

531
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:39,880
Speaker 1: the Carrington Event up real quick, Okay, so ten am.

532
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 1: The effects of this whole crazy event are are done.

533
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:45,480
Speaker 1: And you know, it gets talked about. This is a

534
00:31:45,520 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 1: worldwide event, but it's kind of like treated as a

535
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:53,239
Speaker 1: scientific anomaly, right people. People understand what happened and what

536
00:31:53,400 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 1: caused it and why it happened. Over the years as

537
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 1: we learned more and more about solar flares and coronal

538
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:02,480
Speaker 1: mass ejections, but it didn't become a parent that this

539
00:32:02,560 --> 00:32:07,360
Speaker 1: Carrington event was actually a harbinger of like real, much

540
00:32:07,440 --> 00:32:10,320
Speaker 1: bigger problems that could happen to us alive on Earth

541
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:15,400
Speaker 1: today until the seventies, and um, maybe we'll take a break, chuck,

542
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 1: and come back and talk about how that could be

543
00:32:18,480 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: problematic right after this great m hm. Alright, So the

544
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:51,400
Speaker 1: world changed a lot between the Carrington event in the

545
00:32:51,400 --> 00:32:56,040
Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds and in the nineteen seventies when scientists

546
00:32:56,080 --> 00:32:58,440
Speaker 1: had a much bigger handle on what this kind of

547
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:03,040
Speaker 1: thing meant. And in the nineteen seventies we were the

548
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:06,200
Speaker 1: whole world was very dependent on electric power. You might

549
00:33:06,240 --> 00:33:10,240
Speaker 1: be surprised to learn, right, and they knew like, hey,

550
00:33:10,360 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: if we had another Carrington event today, it could be

551
00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:16,880
Speaker 1: a big deal because and we'll get to this later,

552
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 1: but like, we got a lot of metal on this earth,

553
00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 1: and we use the earth to ground everything basically with

554
00:33:23,880 --> 00:33:28,320
Speaker 1: ground wires, and that creates a unique problem potentially if

555
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:32,080
Speaker 1: we had another event like this. Yeah, the fact that

556
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 1: we chose to use the earth as a ground um

557
00:33:36,840 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: to where are grounding wires go from. Our electrical components

558
00:33:40,480 --> 00:33:43,760
Speaker 1: tie into a metal rod that's driven into the earth,

559
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:47,440
Speaker 1: so that whenever excess electricity is generated by the electronics

560
00:33:47,440 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 1: that we use, it gets distributed through the grounding wire

561
00:33:50,240 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: to the earth where it dissipates. That makes all of

562
00:33:54,000 --> 00:33:58,360
Speaker 1: our electronics vulnerable to a geomagnetic storm, because in a

563
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 1: geomagnetic storm, the ground itself can become magnetized. And even

564
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:07,320
Speaker 1: more than that, chuck, We've buried a lot of metal infrastructure,

565
00:34:07,400 --> 00:34:11,160
Speaker 1: from like pipes to um cables to all sorts of

566
00:34:11,200 --> 00:34:15,120
Speaker 1: metal stuff is snaking through the ground right now, and

567
00:34:15,360 --> 00:34:19,120
Speaker 1: when the ground becomes magnetized into geomagnetic storm it can

568
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 1: create it can carry really powerful currents through all the

569
00:34:22,120 --> 00:34:25,440
Speaker 1: infrastructure up through the grounds, through the grounding wires, and

570
00:34:25,520 --> 00:34:30,000
Speaker 1: into our electronic components, uh including things like power transformers

571
00:34:30,040 --> 00:34:34,760
Speaker 1: and overload them to the point where they fail catastrophically. Yeah.

572
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:39,359
Speaker 1: And this, uh, this sort of happened in August two

573
00:34:40,600 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 1: there was a big, big solar flare that knocked out

574
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:48,319
Speaker 1: our long distance phone communication across Illinois. So that was

575
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:51,160
Speaker 1: just sort of an early example of like, hey, this

576
00:34:51,200 --> 00:34:55,080
Speaker 1: can actually have a real effect here on Earth. UM.

577
00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: And that was that was a big one. It took

578
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: I think about fifteen hours to hit Earth, whereas it

579
00:34:59,640 --> 00:35:02,680
Speaker 1: usually to two to three days. UM. It also set

580
00:35:02,680 --> 00:35:05,760
Speaker 1: off these um we had. It was during Vietnam obviously,

581
00:35:05,840 --> 00:35:09,680
Speaker 1: and we had magnetic sea mines in harbors around Vietnam.

582
00:35:09,840 --> 00:35:12,759
Speaker 1: It exploded those. Yeah, So I don't know if they

583
00:35:12,760 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 1: were supposed to be like secretly there and if that

584
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: was kind of like oh, whoops, sorry about that, or

585
00:35:19,560 --> 00:35:21,799
Speaker 1: if they knew that they were there and and they

586
00:35:21,840 --> 00:35:24,440
Speaker 1: just went off. But either way, UM, that was a

587
00:35:24,440 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 1: pretty scary scene. It was, and apparently it was a

588
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:31,120
Speaker 1: mystery for a long time until somebody finally figured out

589
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,359
Speaker 1: why those sea mines all went off. They connected it

590
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 1: to the UM, to that coronal mass ejection, I believe. Yeah,

591
00:35:38,080 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 1: but you can imagine like all the damage uh that

592
00:35:41,280 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: could occur, Like even if you're just talking about the

593
00:35:44,000 --> 00:35:47,680
Speaker 1: electrical grid. If it really blew out, it wouldn't be

594
00:35:47,760 --> 00:35:51,120
Speaker 1: just like a blackout, like it would destroy parts of

595
00:35:51,120 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 1: our electrical grid such that it would take It's not like, hey,

596
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:56,640
Speaker 1: let me go out and fix this over a few

597
00:35:56,680 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: hours during a snowstorm. It's it might take weeks or

598
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 1: months or even up to a year if we had

599
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 1: a big enough, uh like blast to the grid. Yeah,

600
00:36:07,280 --> 00:36:11,040
Speaker 1: because I mean it is by necessity. Our electrical grid

601
00:36:11,120 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 1: is interconnected. So if one part of it gets overloaded,

602
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,560
Speaker 1: that can overload other parts that are connected. And if

603
00:36:17,600 --> 00:36:21,359
Speaker 1: you have a whole city without power, for let's say

604
00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:23,880
Speaker 1: Los Angeles went went out of power for a month,

605
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:26,680
Speaker 1: what would happen? What would be the what would be

606
00:36:26,680 --> 00:36:29,799
Speaker 1: the outcome of that? You couldn't do anything? And when

607
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,279
Speaker 1: you start thinking like that, you start thinking about, oh

608
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:34,239
Speaker 1: my god, like, think about all the stuff we do

609
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:38,480
Speaker 1: that requires electricity. Everything we do requires electricity in some

610
00:36:38,640 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 1: form or fashion. And so to be without electricity in

611
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:45,480
Speaker 1: a major city or multiple major cities for even a

612
00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 1: couple of weeks is just unthinkable. But that's that's the

613
00:36:49,760 --> 00:36:52,880
Speaker 1: level of vulnerability whereat because of the way that our

614
00:36:52,960 --> 00:36:57,399
Speaker 1: electrical components are set up because they're grounded. Yeah, and

615
00:36:57,400 --> 00:37:01,560
Speaker 1: and not just like a chain reaction and apocalyptic kind

616
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: of activity, but um, just monetary loss, like the economic

617
00:37:05,960 --> 00:37:09,440
Speaker 1: and financial damage for the city of Los Angeles to

618
00:37:09,480 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 1: be without power for a month would be astounding. Um.

619
00:37:14,080 --> 00:37:17,360
Speaker 1: So you know, there's stuff they could do. They could uh,

620
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:22,240
Speaker 1: they could fit some very critical transformers with resistors and capacitors,

621
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:26,200
Speaker 1: but these things are like hundreds of thousand dollars per transformers,

622
00:37:26,200 --> 00:37:30,960
Speaker 1: So that's just too much money. So they're not doing that. No,

623
00:37:31,040 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 1: they're not. And I wonder if there's going to be

624
00:37:33,200 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 1: like some close call that makes everybody Okay, we need

625
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:39,560
Speaker 1: to invest this in our infrastructure, or you know, are

626
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:43,520
Speaker 1: we going to figure out some other means of you know,

627
00:37:43,560 --> 00:37:48,080
Speaker 1: a backup system. I'm not sure that happens to like Topeka.

628
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:52,200
Speaker 1: And then everyone says, hey, if this happened in Topeka

629
00:37:53,080 --> 00:37:58,319
Speaker 1: and they lost you know, several hundred dollars, and that's

630
00:37:58,400 --> 00:38:00,799
Speaker 1: really mean how it's gonna say? Did you think do

631
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 1: you think Topeka would do it? Do you think that

632
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,440
Speaker 1: would convince anybody? I don't know. I'm so sorry Topeka,

633
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:09,160
Speaker 1: but you get my point. If it happens somewhere sort

634
00:38:09,200 --> 00:38:13,279
Speaker 1: of in a smaller area than the big cities. Might say, Hey,

635
00:38:13,400 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 1: that means it could happen to us, the people who

636
00:38:15,960 --> 00:38:21,600
Speaker 1: really matter, right, the coastal elites would stroke their beards

637
00:38:21,600 --> 00:38:25,919
Speaker 1: and struck their tongues. Yeah so, um so yeah, there's

638
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:27,920
Speaker 1: there doesn't seem to be a lot of initiative right

639
00:38:27,920 --> 00:38:30,239
Speaker 1: now to figure this out, and we're just kind of

640
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,560
Speaker 1: sitting ducks in a weird way. It's nothing. I don't

641
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:36,719
Speaker 1: think it's anything to lose sleepover. But it's really surprising.

642
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:38,560
Speaker 1: Like the more I dug into this, the more I

643
00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:42,280
Speaker 1: was like, huh, this could kind of be a thing someday.

644
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:47,000
Speaker 1: And it's not just you know, the electrical grid uh

645
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:50,319
Speaker 1: here on Earth alone is what is all that would

646
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: be affected by that? There um, things we rely on

647
00:38:53,960 --> 00:38:57,799
Speaker 1: out in space, like satellites a bad enough to you,

648
00:38:57,800 --> 00:39:00,560
Speaker 1: a magnetic storm could affect satellites and a out of weights,

649
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:04,440
Speaker 1: so our GPS systems would be messed up. Or if you,

650
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:08,120
Speaker 1: um so, if you use GPS for really important stuff

651
00:39:08,160 --> 00:39:11,720
Speaker 1: like say landing an airplane, you could be in big trouble.

652
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:16,480
Speaker 1: Um and if you're also on planes, the high frequency

653
00:39:16,560 --> 00:39:19,200
Speaker 1: radio communications they used to stay in contact with the ground,

654
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: especially when they're out over the ocean or something like that. UM,

655
00:39:22,640 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 1: that can be disrupted by a solar flare or a

656
00:39:26,360 --> 00:39:29,719
Speaker 1: chronal mass ejection too. Yeah, or what about a satellite

657
00:39:29,719 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 1: maybe that is I mean, there are thousands of satellites

658
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:34,920
Speaker 1: up there, but and you know, if a radio satellite

659
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:37,439
Speaker 1: went out, it would be bad, but people could live.

660
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:40,520
Speaker 1: But what if it affected a satellite that's UM in

661
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: charge of aiding in national defense. Things could get a

662
00:39:44,040 --> 00:39:49,359
Speaker 1: little bit scary if those satellites were down or you know, spacecraft,

663
00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:52,920
Speaker 1: their spacecraft up there and they use satellites to help

664
00:39:52,960 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 1: orient themselves and and keep themselves safe. Uh, there's an

665
00:39:58,719 --> 00:40:02,080
Speaker 1: I S S. Although the ice supposedly is UH is

666
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:05,880
Speaker 1: protected right yeah, oh yeah. The the big threat to

667
00:40:06,280 --> 00:40:10,560
Speaker 1: UM astronauts from coronal mass ejections and solar flares is

668
00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:13,800
Speaker 1: when they're out on spacewalks, when they're doing like labor,

669
00:40:14,000 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 1: say outside the I S S or something like that. UM.

670
00:40:17,280 --> 00:40:19,480
Speaker 1: Just like here on Earth, if we didn't have the

671
00:40:19,520 --> 00:40:23,040
Speaker 1: ionosphere of the magnetosphere, UM, we would be in big trouble.

672
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:26,040
Speaker 1: Astronauts can be in big trouble. The I S s

673
00:40:26,160 --> 00:40:29,880
Speaker 1: orbits within the Earth's magnetosphere, but it's beyond the ionop

674
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:32,640
Speaker 1: so they are a little more exposed. On the I

675
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:35,240
Speaker 1: S S. It's shielded, so they're not nearly as exposed.

676
00:40:35,239 --> 00:40:37,759
Speaker 1: But out on a spacewalk they if it were a

677
00:40:37,800 --> 00:40:40,239
Speaker 1: really bad chronal mass ejection, they could be in a

678
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:43,319
Speaker 1: lot of trouble. Um like Sandra her face in that

679
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:47,400
Speaker 1: movie exactly. Uh, what is your last name? I can't remember,

680
00:40:47,520 --> 00:40:54,680
Speaker 1: sandraw Burning, Sandra Bullo, Sandra, Sandy Duncan, Sandra Bullock. Yeah,

681
00:40:55,120 --> 00:41:00,920
Speaker 1: Sandra Bernhard in that movie Space Space trit Space Craziness.

682
00:41:01,080 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 1: Did you like that movie Gravity? Uh? Yeah, I thought

683
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:08,440
Speaker 1: it was pretty good if I've only seen it once. Um,

684
00:41:08,840 --> 00:41:11,359
Speaker 1: I don't I don't know if I would have cast

685
00:41:11,360 --> 00:41:15,160
Speaker 1: her necessarily, but it's fine. Or George Cleaning, I don't

686
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:16,960
Speaker 1: think I would have cast either of him. I mean

687
00:41:17,000 --> 00:41:18,840
Speaker 1: I had some issues. I mean it was a magnificent

688
00:41:18,880 --> 00:41:21,960
Speaker 1: looking movie, but I think in the end I had

689
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 1: some issues with the story in the script being like

690
00:41:25,320 --> 00:41:27,840
Speaker 1: not good enough for how great of a movie it

691
00:41:27,960 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 1: was trumped up to be. Did Um was that the

692
00:41:32,239 --> 00:41:36,360
Speaker 1: by the guy who did The Revenant? I think so? Yeah,

693
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:38,320
Speaker 1: So you and I went and saw The Revenant in

694
00:41:38,360 --> 00:41:41,480
Speaker 1: Hawaii Wants when we were on vacation, because what else

695
00:41:41,560 --> 00:41:43,319
Speaker 1: is there to do in Hawaii on vacation but go

696
00:41:43,400 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: see movies. And um, we saw The Revenant and this

697
00:41:47,680 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 1: person next to us was there by by himself, and

698
00:41:51,000 --> 00:41:55,880
Speaker 1: he was so upset um by Tom Hardy's character and

699
00:41:55,920 --> 00:41:58,680
Speaker 1: just how evil he was that this guy was like

700
00:41:58,960 --> 00:42:00,839
Speaker 1: telling him he was the dead of all. He had

701
00:42:00,880 --> 00:42:03,040
Speaker 1: his hand up at the screen and was praying against

702
00:42:03,080 --> 00:42:06,360
Speaker 1: Tom Hardy. He was really affected by Tom Hardy's character,

703
00:42:06,719 --> 00:42:08,920
Speaker 1: which made the movie like even more thrilling because we

704
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:10,799
Speaker 1: would look at the movie and then we watch this

705
00:42:10,880 --> 00:42:13,920
Speaker 1: person reacting to the movie too, So it was something

706
00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:17,480
Speaker 1: something to see. Yeah, I saw that once as well,

707
00:42:17,520 --> 00:42:20,560
Speaker 1: and I saw it on tour with you. Either it

708
00:42:20,680 --> 00:42:22,520
Speaker 1: was either Phoenix or San Diego. I don't would have

709
00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:24,000
Speaker 1: to look at the dates, but I just remember there

710
00:42:24,000 --> 00:42:26,840
Speaker 1: being palm trees. I think it was San Diego. Maybe

711
00:42:26,840 --> 00:42:30,440
Speaker 1: when we did a show at that spooky abandoned church, man,

712
00:42:31,080 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: I'm convinced still to this day that that's the church

713
00:42:33,560 --> 00:42:36,360
Speaker 1: from the Prince of Darkness that John Carton. That was

714
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 1: a weird show because that was the one I know.

715
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:41,000
Speaker 1: You remember that guy sat on the front row and

716
00:42:41,080 --> 00:42:44,040
Speaker 1: shot the whole thing with a video camera and he

717
00:42:44,080 --> 00:42:46,520
Speaker 1: looked like he was mad too, like he was documenting

718
00:42:46,560 --> 00:42:49,279
Speaker 1: evidence or something to use against us. We both were like,

719
00:42:49,760 --> 00:42:51,399
Speaker 1: I think we were so caught off guard. We didn't

720
00:42:51,400 --> 00:42:54,200
Speaker 1: know what to say. Do we call this guy and say, sir,

721
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:56,640
Speaker 1: can you please put away your camera? So we just

722
00:42:56,680 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: soldiered on. Yeah, we were pinned down by the unrelenting

723
00:43:01,080 --> 00:43:03,719
Speaker 1: glare of the lens. And then he went back to

724
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:06,920
Speaker 1: his apartment and showed it on TV to his roommate,

725
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:10,759
Speaker 1: who was the Tom Hardy guy, right, and that guy

726
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:14,640
Speaker 1: was like, these guys are the devil. I'm praying against them.

727
00:43:14,760 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 1: Oh man uh alright, so yes, back to the show. Yeah,

728
00:43:20,120 --> 00:43:22,800
Speaker 1: where are we? Oh, here's the deal. We're talking about

729
00:43:23,040 --> 00:43:27,840
Speaker 1: astronauts and satellite operations and GPS. This isn't stuff that

730
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:31,200
Speaker 1: we have just um said, well, this probably could happen

731
00:43:31,560 --> 00:43:35,560
Speaker 1: a lot of it is, but um, this actually has happened. Um.

732
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:37,960
Speaker 1: We'd mentioned the thing in Illinois with the phone systems

733
00:43:38,000 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 1: and then in um the two thousand three that c

734
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:45,320
Speaker 1: m E that did disrupt satellites and that did disrupt

735
00:43:45,480 --> 00:43:49,279
Speaker 1: high frequency radio communications that aviation relies on, and that

736
00:43:49,320 --> 00:43:55,000
Speaker 1: did blackout a city in Sweden. Mm hmm, mammo. Everyone

737
00:43:55,040 --> 00:44:00,279
Speaker 1: says no, not mammo, yeah, mamo everybody. So this the

738
00:44:00,360 --> 00:44:02,400
Speaker 1: kind of thing can happen. It does happen, it's just

739
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:05,520
Speaker 1: never happened on such a massive scale. UM. They figured

740
00:44:05,560 --> 00:44:10,800
Speaker 1: out from looking at Arctic ice cores, apparently highly energetic

741
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:17,320
Speaker 1: particles leave um remnants, not revenants, remnants in nitrates frozen

742
00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 1: in the ice and at the polls and UM. By

743
00:44:20,360 --> 00:44:23,040
Speaker 1: examining these cores, they can see how bad or how

744
00:44:23,080 --> 00:44:25,239
Speaker 1: often or how many solar flares of hit Earth in

745
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:27,640
Speaker 1: the past. And they figured out that the Carrington event

746
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:30,600
Speaker 1: is like a five hundred years solar flare, and it

747
00:44:30,600 --> 00:44:33,759
Speaker 1: happened about a hundred and seventy years ago. Hopefully we're

748
00:44:33,760 --> 00:44:36,319
Speaker 1: in the clear. The key is we're still figuring out

749
00:44:36,320 --> 00:44:39,239
Speaker 1: the dynamics of the Sun and solar activity, so we're

750
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 1: not exactly certain that maybe we're not due for a

751
00:44:41,960 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 1: thousand years solar flare. UM. We're just starting to figure

752
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:49,200
Speaker 1: this out, but we are figuring it out. That's step one.

753
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:53,360
Speaker 1: And we also actually have space weather forecasters here on

754
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:56,400
Speaker 1: Earth at Noah and at the National Weather Service, there

755
00:44:56,400 --> 00:44:59,719
Speaker 1: are people whose job it is subtract solar activity and

756
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 1: predict things like coronal mass ejections and solar flares so

757
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:07,680
Speaker 1: that people can, like like utility companies, can maybe take

758
00:45:08,040 --> 00:45:11,919
Speaker 1: um steps to mitigate the worst effects. Eventually. I think

759
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:14,399
Speaker 1: right now we've got like eight to ten minute heads up,

760
00:45:14,680 --> 00:45:16,760
Speaker 1: so that's not enough. But as we get to understand

761
00:45:16,760 --> 00:45:19,719
Speaker 1: it a little more, we'll have more warning time. And

762
00:45:19,880 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: you know, astronauts can plan their spacewalks when they're out

763
00:45:22,600 --> 00:45:25,920
Speaker 1: doing stuff like building future space colonies. This is all

764
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:28,160
Speaker 1: going to come into play for that too. Yeah, So

765
00:45:28,200 --> 00:45:30,959
Speaker 1: hopefully they can get that up to at least over

766
00:45:31,000 --> 00:45:34,719
Speaker 1: an hour. That would help. Sure. So again, it's nothing

767
00:45:34,760 --> 00:45:36,800
Speaker 1: to lose sleepover. That's not the point of this episode.

768
00:45:36,800 --> 00:45:38,759
Speaker 1: It's more just kind of like ge whiz, this is

769
00:45:39,160 --> 00:45:41,640
Speaker 1: this is amazing by Zeus Beard. I've never heard of

770
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:46,200
Speaker 1: anything like the old fourth reference. Yeahs, surprising fourth one

771
00:45:46,320 --> 00:45:50,080
Speaker 1: did not see that coming. Did you got anything else?

772
00:45:50,280 --> 00:45:53,200
Speaker 1: I got nothing else? All right, everybody chucks that he's

773
00:45:53,200 --> 00:45:55,919
Speaker 1: got nothing else. So that's it for this episode, which

774
00:45:55,960 --> 00:46:01,040
Speaker 1: means it's time for listener mao. Well, let me see here.

775
00:46:01,040 --> 00:46:04,200
Speaker 1: I've actually got quite a few today, which is uh

776
00:46:04,480 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 1: an abundance. We've been getting more than usual, I haven't. Yeah,

777
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:10,160
Speaker 1: we've been getting good ones. All right, I'll choose this one.

778
00:46:10,880 --> 00:46:14,239
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call it Rush Girl. Hey guys, I've been

779
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:16,239
Speaker 1: a long time listener, but you have never But I've

780
00:46:16,239 --> 00:46:18,040
Speaker 1: never had a reason to write until your recent Fort

781
00:46:18,080 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 1: Knox episode. In it you refer to the joke you

782
00:46:21,440 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 1: had made about women not liking the Three Stooges. By

783
00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:26,040
Speaker 1: the way, I got a little grief for that and

784
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:29,520
Speaker 1: also support for that. Weirdly, Chuck made the comment that

785
00:46:29,640 --> 00:46:32,720
Speaker 1: it wasn't like he had something had said something true,

786
00:46:33,520 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 1: but they're like there being no women Rush fans. I

787
00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:39,400
Speaker 1: immediately laugh because my future and mother in law is

788
00:46:39,400 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 1: the biggest Rush fan. I love this lady. She and

789
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:46,640
Speaker 1: my fiance have a bond over this band. In contrast,

790
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:49,600
Speaker 1: I thought the band was made up just for the

791
00:46:49,680 --> 00:46:55,319
Speaker 1: movie I Love You Man. Wow. Yeah, Megan did not

792
00:46:55,400 --> 00:46:57,160
Speaker 1: know Rush was a real band. She thought that was

793
00:46:57,200 --> 00:47:00,200
Speaker 1: a fake band in a movie. Megan, you have a

794
00:47:00,239 --> 00:47:03,120
Speaker 1: whole world ready to open up to you. Yes, you do.

795
00:47:03,760 --> 00:47:07,240
Speaker 1: I guess that they fit the trope According to my fiance,

796
00:47:07,400 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 1: they call female rush fans getty corns, which sounds made up,

797
00:47:12,560 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 1: but he swears it's true getty corns. I don't get that,

798
00:47:16,480 --> 00:47:20,400
Speaker 1: but like a unicorn maybe, oh yeah, exactly, or or

799
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:23,360
Speaker 1: it could be candy corn. No, no, I'm sure it's

800
00:47:23,400 --> 00:47:27,040
Speaker 1: like the Getty Getty Lee unicorn mash up. I like that.

801
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:29,359
Speaker 1: I didn't get that until just now, so thank you.

802
00:47:30,560 --> 00:47:33,080
Speaker 1: At any rate, I can recognize the joke, and I'm

803
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:34,840
Speaker 1: not coming after you for that. I just found it

804
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:37,759
Speaker 1: funny that all the stereotypical male bands you could have picked,

805
00:47:37,800 --> 00:47:40,160
Speaker 1: you chose my mother in law's favorite. Thanks for all

806
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:42,359
Speaker 1: you do. Your podcast has gone a long way toward

807
00:47:42,440 --> 00:47:45,920
Speaker 1: helping me distress after a day of teaching during COVID.

808
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:49,799
Speaker 1: And that is from Megan Power and Megan, thank you,

809
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:52,359
Speaker 1: and big ups to your mother in law for being

810
00:47:52,360 --> 00:47:58,040
Speaker 1: a getty corn. Yeah, not to be confused with candy corn. Well,

811
00:47:58,080 --> 00:47:59,880
Speaker 1: if you want to be like Megan and let us

812
00:47:59,880 --> 00:48:03,239
Speaker 1: know how we just totally blew your mind somehow or other.

813
00:48:03,360 --> 00:48:05,880
Speaker 1: We love hearing that stuff. You can put it in

814
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:08,560
Speaker 1: an email and wrap it up spanking on the bottom

815
00:48:08,560 --> 00:48:11,080
Speaker 1: and send it off to stuff podcasts at iHeart radio

816
00:48:11,160 --> 00:48:16,279
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff you Should Know is a production of

817
00:48:16,320 --> 00:48:19,359
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit

818
00:48:19,400 --> 00:48:22,080
Speaker 1: the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

819
00:48:22,120 --> 00:48:26,680
Speaker 1: to your favorite shows. H