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Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
Speaker 1: and I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as always a senior writer, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: It seems like years since it's been clear. Nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So here comes the sun. Guys. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: the sun and how it can affect electronics. You guys
Speaker 1: have probably been hearing about this, uh in the news
Speaker 1: because we're coming up on the peak of sunspot activity
Speaker 1: during its eleven year cycle and uh, and so there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of talk about what this might do
Speaker 1: to electronics and power grids and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: And we want to kind of talk to you about
Speaker 1: what the sun can do, how it can do and why.
Speaker 1: You know, we need to be concentrating on things like
Speaker 1: upgrading the power of grid at least in North America
Speaker 1: to h to prepare ourselves for this kind of stuff. Um. Now, really,
Speaker 1: to start off, we need to know what the sun is.
Speaker 1: I mean that that would help us tremendously in the discussion.
Speaker 1: So it's that big yellow thing up there in the sky. Well,
Speaker 1: I would like to refer to a song that was
Speaker 1: written by high Zerit and Lose Singer, but was made
Speaker 1: more famous by a group called They Might Be Giants. Now,
Speaker 1: the song starts with the sun is a mass of
Speaker 1: incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace. Now, as it turns
Speaker 1: out high and lou and by extension, they might be
Speaker 1: giant Scott. That not exactly accurate. So the sun is
Speaker 1: not just a mass of incandescent gas a gigantic nuclear furnace. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's a little more complex than that. And in fact,
Speaker 1: before I go any further, I should add that They
Speaker 1: Might be Giants has since recorded another song that addresses this.
Speaker 1: They go into more detail, and it's part of their
Speaker 1: children's series, so you can check that out. But what
Speaker 1: the sun is, it's a gigantic ball of plasma. Yeah, plasma.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, there's a joke that that in my head
Speaker 1: I always say, and I just decided not to go
Speaker 1: with it this time. So that's why you had to pause,
Speaker 1: because play out. Yes, yeah, it is in fact um
Speaker 1: and it has been around for quite some time, and
Speaker 1: it isn't expected to be quite some time more because
Speaker 1: it is UH gradually using up a vast supply of helium. Yes.
Speaker 1: So the sun plasma, we've talked about it many many times.
Speaker 1: Plasma is an ionized gas. It's gas that has free
Speaker 1: roaming electrons in it. Uh. In the case of the Sun,
Speaker 1: the temperatures are so high that that energy strips atoms
Speaker 1: of their electrons. That's what causes the electrons to to
Speaker 1: fly out. And we've also talked about in the past
Speaker 1: that when electrons flow, that's electricity. And one of the
Speaker 1: by products of an electrical flow is a magnetic field, right,
Speaker 1: And this is what the basis of electromagnets are. That's
Speaker 1: that's the whole foundation, right, that you can induce electricity
Speaker 1: through by using a magnetic field. That's a that's a
Speaker 1: dynamo or did you yeah, Yes, that would be a dynamo, right.
Speaker 1: Electromagnet is the other way around. Yeah. I thought that's
Speaker 1: where you were going. Yeah, And I realized as I
Speaker 1: was saying it that I was going backwards. Electromagnet. You
Speaker 1: use electricity to create a magnetic field, m a dynamo,
Speaker 1: use a magnetic field to induce electricity. So that's really
Speaker 1: the basis of where these problems come from. But we'll
Speaker 1: we'll get build a little further. So the Sun is
Speaker 1: pretty complex, especially with magnetic fields. The Earth, as a comparison,
Speaker 1: is very simple. If you look at the Earth, if
Speaker 1: you were to be able to look at the Earth
Speaker 1: and think of it like a you know, you make
Speaker 1: the Earth kind of a clear ball, um, the magnetic
Speaker 1: field would go around the Earth as if there was
Speaker 1: a small bar magnet running through the center of the
Speaker 1: Earth with the north pole in the south pole. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you look inside your head right now, you'll see
Speaker 1: an illustration of exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a lot harder for us to actually show this on
Speaker 1: an audio podcast, but the the idea here being that
Speaker 1: you would have these magnetic fields that link the one
Speaker 1: pole of the magnet to the other pole. And uh,
Speaker 1: we usually draw these out by these big loops. And
Speaker 1: if you ever look at a drawing of a magnetic field,
Speaker 1: you'll see these lines we call magnetic field lines. Um
Speaker 1: that that kind of give you an indication of how
Speaker 1: strong the fields are. If you see lots of lines
Speaker 1: parallel to one another. That means that that's where the
Speaker 1: field is particularly strong. And then there may be a
Speaker 1: big gap and you see another line. Well, that means
Speaker 1: that the field is not particularly strong in that area,
Speaker 1: but it's still extends to the side. Here's an interesting rule. Okay,
Speaker 1: magnetic field lines cannot cross really really and this is
Speaker 1: possibly why the Sun is the way it is. When
Speaker 1: you look at the Sun, you think of the sun
Speaker 1: in um and three major uh layers. Okay, you got
Speaker 1: the photosphere, which is the core of it. Uh, that
Speaker 1: gets pretty hot. That's that's an understatement. Fift million degrees
Speaker 1: or so. Pretty hot. That's pretty hot. Fifteen million degrees. Yes,
Speaker 1: that is warmer than Atlanta in the summer. I'm pretty
Speaker 1: sure you could make a tray of chicken nuggets in
Speaker 1: a pretty short time. Yeah, you can paporize them instantaneously. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that that would do it. The surface of the Sun, however,
Speaker 1: is a relatively chilly five thousand degrees. Yes, so, uh,
Speaker 1: you know you've got the core that that's where you're
Speaker 1: getting to the chromosphere. I'm sorry, did you say that
Speaker 1: the surface the actual surface of the sun. But beyond
Speaker 1: the surface of the sun is something called the corona.
Speaker 1: Now the corona can be two million degrees so the corona,
Speaker 1: and and people might say, well, how can the corona,
Speaker 1: which is the next layer out, how can that be
Speaker 1: hotter than the surface of the sun. Uh, And that's
Speaker 1: a good question, and we're not entirely sure that we
Speaker 1: know the answer. But the possible explanation is that it's
Speaker 1: because magnetic field lines are constantly shifting on the surface
Speaker 1: of the Sun. And these are relatively small compared to
Speaker 1: the the entire mass of the Sun. But because magnetic
Speaker 1: field lines cannot cross, any time that one magnetic field
Speaker 1: gets close to another, they have to readjust they cannot
Speaker 1: cross one another. And that this, this constant shifting, is
Speaker 1: what generates the energy necessary to create that massive amount
Speaker 1: of heat in the corona, because otherwise you would think, like,
Speaker 1: if you think of like a heat source, the heat
Speaker 1: dissipates the fur or away you get from the source, right, sure,
Speaker 1: So that's why it gets confusing, like how could you
Speaker 1: get hotter than the surface if you're further away from
Speaker 1: the source of the heat, which presumably would be the
Speaker 1: core um. So that's that's part of it. So the
Speaker 1: Sun has all these magnetic fields and that's where some
Speaker 1: problems can happen. That's true. Yeah. You may have heard
Speaker 1: these things called sun spots. Yes, so yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1: I was going to say, sun spots are at least
Speaker 1: according to uh to Noah, the government agency, not the
Speaker 1: guy with the big boat with the animals. Um, sun
Speaker 1: spots are are areas in which the magnetic field is
Speaker 1: about times uh stronger than than the Earth's right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and these are and it's it's higher than anywhere else
Speaker 1: in the Sun for that matter. So you know that that. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, they pop up from time to time. But
Speaker 1: what's odd is the temperature on those areas is cooler. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What's happening is uh, hot gas is from the core
Speaker 1: of the sun rise towards the surface. Okay, so so
Speaker 1: here's another thing about the Sun. This is part of
Speaker 1: the reason why magnetic fields gets so uh so wound
Speaker 1: up on the surface of the Sun or in the
Speaker 1: corona even Um, it's that you've got two major forces
Speaker 1: at play here. You've got the tendency for hot things
Speaker 1: to expand. The Sun is extremely hot, so therefore it's
Speaker 1: trying to expand quite a bit. But you also have
Speaker 1: the force of gravity because the Sun is very dense
Speaker 1: and very large, so it has a very strong gravitational
Speaker 1: pull and the gravity is kind of what holds it
Speaker 1: together while it's also trying to expand, and this creates
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure, which is what sort of can
Speaker 1: muck up the magnetic field lines on the surface. Now,
Speaker 1: if you get these magnetic field lines clumping together again,
Speaker 1: they're not crossing, but they're all kind of gathering into
Speaker 1: a space, that's what can suppress that hot gas from
Speaker 1: the core from getting to the surface. So that's where
Speaker 1: that area of surface begins to cool in comparison to
Speaker 1: the rest of the surface of the Sun. It makes
Speaker 1: the darker spot on the Sun, that's the Sun's spot.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you were to to look at the
Speaker 1: Sun using um uh an electronic telescope, something that's not
Speaker 1: going to burn your retinas out, you would actually be
Speaker 1: able to see that the there are little spots on
Speaker 1: the Sun that are darker than the rest, and that
Speaker 1: would be where these magnetic fields are preventing that hot
Speaker 1: gas from rising to the surface. Now, sometimes they fix themselves.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they fix themselves. Sometimes the magnetic field lines will
Speaker 1: become untwisted and the gases will be able to rise
Speaker 1: to the surface and the surface will warm up to
Speaker 1: the same temperature as the rest of the surface, and
Speaker 1: the sun spot will go away. Sometimes they don't, Okay,
Speaker 1: then well they don't. Is the big thing? Do you
Speaker 1: want to talk about? The big thing? The big thing
Speaker 1: the solar flares? Okay, I mean we guess, I guess
Speaker 1: we And I was going to uh to add, by
Speaker 1: the way, a couple of technical terms, so please do please,
Speaker 1: and just a couple of interesting facts too, because the
Speaker 1: they're too. Basically, a dark region of the sun spot
Speaker 1: is known as the umbra, and there's a lighter region
Speaker 1: immediately around it called the pannumbra um. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's different. And the reason the reason they are that
Speaker 1: color is because of the temperature. But they may seem
Speaker 1: very small if you were to see photos of sun spots.
Speaker 1: I've seen quite a few of them in photos uh
Speaker 1: distributed by NASA. Uh they look pretty small. But keep
Speaker 1: in mind that again according to Noah, that the typical
Speaker 1: size of one of those teeny tiny sun spots is
Speaker 1: about the size of you know, the Earth, So they're
Speaker 1: they're actually quite large. They're small in relation to the
Speaker 1: size of the sun overall, but in relation to us,
Speaker 1: they are enormous. Yes, so yes, solar flavor relative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so solar flyer. So I was talking about how the
Speaker 1: magnetic field line sort of clumped together. You can kind
Speaker 1: of think of them as coils, like think of think
Speaker 1: of a metal cable, alright, that and one end is
Speaker 1: secured to something, all right, and then just imagine that
Speaker 1: you're twisting that cable and as you twist it, you're
Speaker 1: building up tension, and theoretically, uh, well, let's say you
Speaker 1: just keep on twisting and twisting and twisting. It's kinking up,
Speaker 1: and then eventually it breaks free of whatever you've secured
Speaker 1: it to. Yes, okay, it's gonna untangle very violently, very quickly.
Speaker 1: The cable is gonna whip around, and I wouldn't want
Speaker 1: to be next to it. You wouldn't. You'd get freshed,
Speaker 1: might not get cut in half, according to the MythBusters,
Speaker 1: but you're gonna get bruised up pretty badly. And yeah,
Speaker 1: don't hang a pig next to the sun. I guess
Speaker 1: it is the moral of that story. If you've seen
Speaker 1: that episode of MythBusters, that makes sense. Otherwise, that's just
Speaker 1: the strangest, strangest non sequit or ever, but at any rate,
Speaker 1: So the magnetic field lines are like this. They can
Speaker 1: coil up and get really really really twisted and if
Speaker 1: eventually something has to give. Now, like I said, sometimes
Speaker 1: they redistribute and everything's calm and everything's cool, but uh,
Speaker 1: actually everything's warming up. But sometimes they snap and not
Speaker 1: snap is in break, but snap is in They uncoil
Speaker 1: very very quickly and violently, and as a result, material
Speaker 1: from the sun and light from the Sun ejects out
Speaker 1: into space in a very kind of violent eruption. And
Speaker 1: that's what we call solar flare. And uh that mostly
Speaker 1: ends up being a lot of light in the complete spectrum,
Speaker 1: not just the visible spectrum, but things like X rays,
Speaker 1: gamma rays, ultraviolet light that gets ejected out there too,
Speaker 1: and uh and most of that is bad for us. Yep.
Speaker 1: The the flares, the solar flares can be uh you know,
Speaker 1: several million degrees fahrenheit and uh they could again according
Speaker 1: to a release as much energy as uh t n T,
Speaker 1: like you know, a billion mega tons of t n T.
Speaker 1: So it's extremely violent reaction right now. Fortunately, the Earth's
Speaker 1: atmosphere and magnetosphere helped protect us against these uh, this
Speaker 1: light that comes out from the solar flares, So solar
Speaker 1: flares don't tend to bother us too much because the
Speaker 1: Earth's atmosphere absorbs a lot of that light, so things
Speaker 1: like the gamma rays and X rays, we don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about getting I radiated from a solar flare
Speaker 1: most of the time. I say most of the time,
Speaker 1: because there are exceptions. If you happen to be a
Speaker 1: an astronaut in outer space, you could be vulnerable to
Speaker 1: the energy released from a solar flare. Now, if you
Speaker 1: get into spacecraft, most spacecraft are shielded against such things,
Speaker 1: so you're not gonna necessarily suffer the effects. Um, although
Speaker 1: you could end up with something akin to a sunburn
Speaker 1: or some cellular damage. But from most of the the
Speaker 1: material I've read, such damage is not necessarily permanent or
Speaker 1: or catastrophic in nature. But it's you know, you still
Speaker 1: don't want it to happen. You never want to get hurt,
Speaker 1: so um, but it can also do nasty things like
Speaker 1: it can if if this energy were to hit, say
Speaker 1: a satellite that doesn't have proper shielding on it, it
Speaker 1: could actually strip the electrons from the satellite and create
Speaker 1: magnetic fields in the satellite, which could fry the satellites electronics.
Speaker 1: That seems that seem yeah, that's not good. Now, a
Speaker 1: lot of satellites are shielded against this, particularly things like
Speaker 1: military satellites. UM, not all of them are because just
Speaker 1: you know, it's one of those things where you have
Speaker 1: to pour in extra R and D and everything to
Speaker 1: to create a shielded satellite. So some communication satellites could
Speaker 1: suffer if if a solar flare erupted towards Earth and
Speaker 1: uh and we got hit by the energy. Keep in
Speaker 1: mind that you know this, this, this, these kind of
Speaker 1: activities are happening all over the Sun, and not all
Speaker 1: of those are going to be directed at us true,
Speaker 1: so we don't necessarily have to worry about this every
Speaker 1: time it happens, just when it's pointed at us UM. Now,
Speaker 1: solar flares are are can be annoying, but those aren't
Speaker 1: the things that are really going to affect us UM
Speaker 1: on the ground most of the time, apart from maybe
Speaker 1: some disruption of some communications material satellites. What we have
Speaker 1: to worry about our c M ease, I mean the
Speaker 1: coronal mass eject ejections ronal mass ejections. I'm sorry, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: you thought I was getting ready to misspeak and I
Speaker 1: didn't know you you were on track. Yeah, coronal mass ejections. Now,
Speaker 1: these can sometimes accompany a solar flare, uh, and sometimes
Speaker 1: they happen without a solar flare. UM. Coronal mass ejection
Speaker 1: is remember we were talking about the corona earlier, that
Speaker 1: that area around the sun that's set two million degrees Uh.
Speaker 1: A chronal mass ejection is pretty much what sounds like.
Speaker 1: It's a mass from the corona being ejected out into space. Again,
Speaker 1: it's a it's related to magnetic field lines UM. But
Speaker 1: unlike a solar flare, which ejects both light and lots
Speaker 1: of particles, a kernel mass ejection does not eject a
Speaker 1: lot of light, lots and lots of sub atomic particles though,
Speaker 1: and also which in turns sins out a magnetic shock
Speaker 1: wave shock wave, yeah, which is not good. No, you
Speaker 1: were mentioning magnetic fields like on Earth. Yes, indeed, And
Speaker 1: the thing is um. Since these are frequently found around
Speaker 1: sun spots, we have an idea of where they're going
Speaker 1: to happen. Yeah, although maybe not necessarily when right. Well,
Speaker 1: and a couple of CMEs hit us that we're recording
Speaker 1: this in in August, and a couple of SMEs um
Speaker 1: erupted and and hit us just a few weeks ago. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: did not really disrupt that much here on Earth, but
Speaker 1: it could have. Um it could have created what we
Speaker 1: call like a solar storm. But these CMEs, these these particles,
Speaker 1: this magnetic field, it can really mess us up. If
Speaker 1: you were have ever really done any experiments with magnets,
Speaker 1: then you know that they behave in interesting ways. For example,
Speaker 1: if you have a really powerful magnet and you bring
Speaker 1: a less powerful magnet within its magnetic field, the less
Speaker 1: powerful magnet will adjust its magnetic field to be aligned
Speaker 1: with the more powerful magnet. Right, So if you were
Speaker 1: to blast, say, I don't know, the Earth with a
Speaker 1: huge magnetic shockwave, it could temporarily realign the Earth's magnetic field. Yes,
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, it is likely to compress
Speaker 1: in this case, compress the magnetic field of the Earth
Speaker 1: on the side the day side, and extended on the
Speaker 1: other side, the night side. Yeah, and uh, it's basically
Speaker 1: I guess if you could see it, it would sort
Speaker 1: of look like it was stretching it out on the
Speaker 1: other side, right, and you might go, why the day side, Well,
Speaker 1: you know it's a side facing the sun. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: funny how that happens. So so CMEs can do some
Speaker 1: cool stuff, right, I mean one of the cool things
Speaker 1: are the auroras, the Aurora borealis and Aurora ostrallis. You
Speaker 1: might not necessarily have imagined that those would be related
Speaker 1: to the magnetic field, but as it turns out they are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's happening here is that the magnetic field changes on
Speaker 1: on Earth. And of course you know the magnetic fields
Speaker 1: originating at the polls, right, That's that's the source where
Speaker 1: you know where the links are coming in. So when
Speaker 1: the fluctuations hit, Uh, what will happen is that these
Speaker 1: these particles, this magnetic field is stripping oxygen and nitrogen
Speaker 1: of electrons, ionizing the atmosphere essentially, is what's what's happening now.
Speaker 1: Once those uh, those atoms, those oxygen and nitrogen atoms
Speaker 1: begin to lose energy, they will recombine with electrons. As
Speaker 1: a result, they give off light. It's it's kind of
Speaker 1: the you know, it's that's just part of the reaction
Speaker 1: is as they get electrons, they'll give off light. And
Speaker 1: that's the Aurora or the Aurora borealis and Aurora australis,
Speaker 1: And depending on how strong the CME is, you might
Speaker 1: be able to see those effects pretty far away from
Speaker 1: the polls. There was a famous event in eighteen I
Speaker 1: think it was eighteen fifty nine where there was such
Speaker 1: a strong CME. Now grant, we didn't even know what
Speaker 1: that was at that point, but such a strong one
Speaker 1: hit the earth that reportedly people as far south as
Speaker 1: Cuba could see the Aurora borealis, which is significant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's pretty phenomenal. Um. Now, Granted, back in back in
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine, we didn't have a whole lot of
Speaker 1: electronics to screw up, so it's kind of hard to
Speaker 1: say how extensive that would have messed up our electronics today.
Speaker 1: But they did have problems with telegraph systems and things
Speaker 1: of that nature. Um, so that's uh, it's indicative that
Speaker 1: we would have suffered problems today if it had happened
Speaker 1: that way. Now, stuff things words that I can put
Speaker 1: together incentive Well, it's not. It's certainly not the first
Speaker 1: noticeable sun spot uh goings on. Um, you know as
Speaker 1: far as the past, and we didn't necessarily know what
Speaker 1: was going on because um, uh from the mid to
Speaker 1: probably the early part of the next century. Uh, the
Speaker 1: Mander minimum. Have you heard of this? I do not
Speaker 1: know the Maunder minimum. Ha. Well, apparently there was very
Speaker 1: little sunspot activity and there were a number of long winters.
Speaker 1: Uh and uh, basically this was a little ice age.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've heard of that. Um, And they're they're
Speaker 1: not sure. I mean, obviously this is a problem of
Speaker 1: not having the instruments and know how at the time.
Speaker 1: But it is coincidental that they at least coincidental that
Speaker 1: those two things happened right about the same time. But
Speaker 1: they're thinking that it is possible that the very low
Speaker 1: sun spot activity may have had a part to play
Speaker 1: in the little ice age. Also, UM, you know, we're
Speaker 1: currently in what they're calling solar cycle twenty four. Uh. Catchy,
Speaker 1: I know, isn't it. Um, not that this apparently followed
Speaker 1: uh never mind um cycle exactly. But apparently they they
Speaker 1: are expecting the scientists are expecting it to peak in
Speaker 1: the next year or two. So the feeling we're we're
Speaker 1: not going to be We're going to see more than
Speaker 1: just the activity from a few weeks here Here's what
Speaker 1: here's what irritates me. Why why do we have to
Speaker 1: have the horrible coincidence of the Mayan calendar problem and
Speaker 1: the sun spots cycle? Because yes, the sun spot cycle
Speaker 1: should have a peak either in eleven or twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: And as I'm sure many of you have heard, twelve
Speaker 1: is the end of the Mayan Long count calendar. Um
Speaker 1: or I should say a Mayon long count calendar, because
Speaker 1: the mind's actually used multiple calendars and not just that one. Um.
Speaker 1: So some people have gone on to say, hey, this
Speaker 1: might be what is going to be the end times.
Speaker 1: I could know it's a coincidence, folks. I mean, I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna say that sunspots won't cause massive problems, because
Speaker 1: they can. But um but it has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with the Mayan calendar. Just don't even think about that.
Speaker 1: So direct all your hate mail too, uh stuff you
Speaker 1: should know so chron chronal mass ejections. We talked about
Speaker 1: how you know it can it can really create these
Speaker 1: powerful auroras where that that magnetic flux causes other problems
Speaker 1: as well. I did mention earlier about dynamos where you
Speaker 1: use a magnetic field to induce electricity. Yes, sometimes that
Speaker 1: can happen even if you didn't intend it to. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that is a major oh so for for big, big,
Speaker 1: powerful conductors. So we're talking about things like electrical transformers
Speaker 1: and power grids. Uh, if you create a magnetic flux
Speaker 1: around these, it can induce electricity to flow through them. Now,
Speaker 1: if your if your power system has capacity for that,
Speaker 1: that's fine. But in North America, our power grid is
Speaker 1: operating almost at capacity all the time, so there's really
Speaker 1: no room for more power to flow through this system.
Speaker 1: And here's the if you were to create more power
Speaker 1: in this system, the big problem there would be that
Speaker 1: you've got the system that that is already operating as
Speaker 1: close to capacity as we can comfortably get. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: an overflow issue. It seems strange, but if you put
Speaker 1: too much electricity through a power line, it can cause
Speaker 1: the power line to snap. And the reason for that, well,
Speaker 1: there are multiple reasons. One is that one of the
Speaker 1: byproducts of making electricity flow through things because we don't
Speaker 1: have any perfect conductors, is it generates heat. So as
Speaker 1: power lines heat up, they expand, they sag, and if
Speaker 1: they heat up enough, they'll snap. So you run enough
Speaker 1: electricity through these things, they will actually weaken and break.
Speaker 1: And so a really powerful CME could presumably create a
Speaker 1: magnetic field that could cause power lines to snap across
Speaker 1: an entire region. It would also cause transformers to suddenly
Speaker 1: have massive amounts of electricity flowing through them. These are,
Speaker 1: in general what we call bad things because now I'm
Speaker 1: not saying it's going to lead to the collapse of civilization,
Speaker 1: but it could lead to an entire region, the entire
Speaker 1: sector of the power grid going down. And once the
Speaker 1: power grid goes down, it really starts to muck up
Speaker 1: your ability to handle a crisis because we depend so
Speaker 1: heavily upon electricity. Yes, even even portable electronics, you know,
Speaker 1: even stuff not connected directly to the grid are affected. Yeah,
Speaker 1: something like that. Even even if they weren't directly affected,
Speaker 1: Like even if your phone isn't fried, you'd still have
Speaker 1: to connect to the system that was actually plugged into
Speaker 1: the wall essentially, which is fried, Which is right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So a major CME probably wouldn't make Like you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about e m p s. We did that, right,
Speaker 1: The elenetic pulse, an electromagnetic pulse is kind of the
Speaker 1: same thing. You're creating this huge magnetic field that will
Speaker 1: wipe out electronics. Well, it's sort of the same thing
Speaker 1: with a CME, except that smaller electronics probably would not
Speaker 1: be damaged or affected, so you're not gonna have to
Speaker 1: worry about your smartphone suddenly being fried. The problem is
Speaker 1: that the cellular network you connect to has been fried,
Speaker 1: so you're carrying around the device is still works, but
Speaker 1: there's no service to support it. The service you are
Speaker 1: trying to reach has been completely obliterating, right, please try
Speaker 1: your call again later exactly. So that's that's the real issue.
Speaker 1: There is not It's not just that your you know,
Speaker 1: electronics could die on you. It's that the support systems
Speaker 1: could die on you. Now, if you had, let's say,
Speaker 1: a phone that also had a radio function in it,
Speaker 1: theoretically you would be able to use that, except for
Speaker 1: one small problem, which is that the atmosphere has been
Speaker 1: ionized and radio waves don't travel very well throw it,
Speaker 1: so it can actually a kernel mass injection can also
Speaker 1: disrupt radio signals, which may be problematic since the they're
Speaker 1: talking about the possibility of requiring FM receivers, and but
Speaker 1: that you've said that just to make me go crazy,
Speaker 1: just to MAKEE R I double a oh, requiring all
Speaker 1: devices to all that's in the news today with the
Speaker 1: day we're recording this, and there's no there's no guarantee
Speaker 1: that anything will happen. They're just there are a and
Speaker 1: the recording industry executive and the radio industry are are
Speaker 1: trying to get electronic manufacturers to put an FM receiver
Speaker 1: in pretty much anything that has in order to support
Speaker 1: a dying industry. But that's not what our talk. Our
Speaker 1: talk is about. We just wanted to push one of
Speaker 1: Jonathan's buttons. We could do a full podcast that he
Speaker 1: wanted to give me. An aneurysm is what he wanted
Speaker 1: to do. Um if we could do a whole podcast
Speaker 1: on that. And yes, it has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: what we're talking about here, so uh will will see that.
Speaker 1: Will a solar event wipe out all electronics on Earth?
Speaker 1: Probably not for something like that, something so massive to
Speaker 1: do that, because again, it's mostly gonna affect whichever side
Speaker 1: that the Earth is facing the Sun at that time,
Speaker 1: and it's not even gonna affect the whole surface evenly.
Speaker 1: Um So, for something to to be so strong as
Speaker 1: to put that kind of strain on the Earth's power
Speaker 1: systems I think that the electricity a thing would be
Speaker 1: the least of our worries because we'd be bathed in radiation. Um,
Speaker 1: that seems bad again. Yeah, and there's no there there's
Speaker 1: no evidence that anything like that will happen. Now granted,
Speaker 1: there there is the potential for systems to to suffer
Speaker 1: in the short term and uh, and that that damage
Speaker 1: could be extensive enough to cause some really serious problems.
Speaker 1: Like if you imagine, you know, like the blackouts that
Speaker 1: we had in years past and things like New York
Speaker 1: and calif aren'ta UM, those can cause big issues, especially
Speaker 1: if there's an emergency. It makes it much harder for
Speaker 1: emergency crews to respond. Um. There are some real problems
Speaker 1: that come with this sort of stuff. But it's not
Speaker 1: like a global uh twelve or day after tomorrow kind
Speaker 1: of situation. Right, Sorry, that's been Hollywood it up a
Speaker 1: little bit, a little bit. Yeah, Yeah, I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't think John Cusack will have to do three
Speaker 1: back to back chase sequences from in an airplane versus
Speaker 1: the Earth if we have a massive CME event in UM.
Speaker 1: But he might have difficulty getting cell phone reception. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he might have difficult to get cast in another movie.
Speaker 1: I like Cusack a lot, but seriously, dude, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's on topic. Because twelve was caused supposedly by solar
Speaker 1: events affecting the Earth's core in some vaguely scientific way
Speaker 1: that made no sense. If you would like to complain,
Speaker 1: send your email to stuff you should know. Um, I
Speaker 1: just like to keep that meme going because they'll complain
Speaker 1: on air about us. We just send complaints to them.
Speaker 1: Uh no, they're great guys. Anyway. Yeah, that kind of
Speaker 1: wraps this up. That that that's how the sun can
Speaker 1: really mess with your electronics. There's not a whole lot
Speaker 1: we can do about it, really, except to try and
Speaker 1: upgrade to smarter power systems that are shielded against this
Speaker 1: kind of thing, because there aren't things that we can
Speaker 1: do that like a smart grid, which could you know,
Speaker 1: adjust capacity as needed, would theoretically be able to handle
Speaker 1: this kind of thing, but we don't have a smart grid.
Speaker 1: We're trying to move towards that, but that could take
Speaker 1: decades to create. It's a lot of time and a
Speaker 1: lot of expense and a lot of labor to get
Speaker 1: that switched out right right, So hopefully people will support
Speaker 1: that and we'll be able to move to such a
Speaker 1: system so that in the event that something like this happens,
Speaker 1: we we have as little interruption in our daily lives
Speaker 1: as possible. That's the goal that all right, guys, well,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening. If you have any questions, comments,
Speaker 1: topic suggestions, anything like that, you can write us. Our
Speaker 1: email address is tech stuff at how stuff Works dot
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