September 6, 2010 • 30 mins
As the sun reaches the apex of its eleven-year cycle, its magnetic activity increases and could pose a threat for some electronics -- especially satellites. In this episode, the guys break down the science behind solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
and I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
(00:22):
Sitting across from me as always a senior writer, Jonathan Strickland.
It seems like years since it's been clear. Nice. Yeah,
So here comes the sun. Guys. We're gonna talk about
the sun and how it can affect electronics. You guys
have probably been hearing about this, uh in the news
because we're coming up on the peak of sunspot activity
(00:45):
during its eleven year cycle and uh, and so there's
been a lot of talk about what this might do
to electronics and power grids and that kind of thing.
And we want to kind of talk to you about
what the sun can do, how it can do and why.
You know, we need to be concentrating on things like
upgrading the power of grid at least in North America
(01:06):
to h to prepare ourselves for this kind of stuff. Um. Now, really,
to start off, we need to know what the sun is.
I mean that that would help us tremendously in the discussion.
So it's that big yellow thing up there in the sky. Well,
I would like to refer to a song that was
written by high Zerit and Lose Singer, but was made
(01:28):
more famous by a group called They Might Be Giants. Now,
the song starts with the sun is a mass of
incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace. Now, as it turns
out high and lou and by extension, they might be
giant Scott. That not exactly accurate. So the sun is
(01:51):
not just a mass of incandescent gas a gigantic nuclear furnace. Um,
it's it's a little more complex than that. And in fact,
before I go any further, I should add that They
Might be Giants has since recorded another song that addresses this.
They go into more detail, and it's part of their
children's series, so you can check that out. But what
(02:11):
the sun is, it's a gigantic ball of plasma. Yeah, plasma.
I'm sorry, there's a joke that that in my head
I always say, and I just decided not to go
with it this time. So that's why you had to pause,
because play out. Yes, yeah, it is in fact um
and it has been around for quite some time, and
it isn't expected to be quite some time more because
(02:35):
it is UH gradually using up a vast supply of helium. Yes.
So the sun plasma, we've talked about it many many times.
Plasma is an ionized gas. It's gas that has free
roaming electrons in it. Uh. In the case of the Sun,
the temperatures are so high that that energy strips atoms
(02:56):
of their electrons. That's what causes the electrons to to
fly out. And we've also talked about in the past
that when electrons flow, that's electricity. And one of the
by products of an electrical flow is a magnetic field, right,
And this is what the basis of electromagnets are. That's
that's the whole foundation, right, that you can induce electricity
(03:20):
through by using a magnetic field. That's a that's a
dynamo or did you yeah, Yes, that would be a dynamo, right.
Electromagnet is the other way around. Yeah. I thought that's
where you were going. Yeah, And I realized as I
was saying it that I was going backwards. Electromagnet. You
use electricity to create a magnetic field, m a dynamo,
use a magnetic field to induce electricity. So that's really
(03:42):
the basis of where these problems come from. But we'll
we'll get build a little further. So the Sun is
pretty complex, especially with magnetic fields. The Earth, as a comparison,
is very simple. If you look at the Earth, if
you were to be able to look at the Earth
and think of it like a you know, you make
(04:02):
the Earth kind of a clear ball, um, the magnetic
field would go around the Earth as if there was
a small bar magnet running through the center of the
Earth with the north pole in the south pole. Yeah,
if you look inside your head right now, you'll see
an illustration of exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, it's
a lot harder for us to actually show this on
an audio podcast, but the the idea here being that
(04:25):
you would have these magnetic fields that link the one
pole of the magnet to the other pole. And uh,
we usually draw these out by these big loops. And
if you ever look at a drawing of a magnetic field,
you'll see these lines we call magnetic field lines. Um
that that kind of give you an indication of how
(04:45):
strong the fields are. If you see lots of lines
parallel to one another. That means that that's where the
field is particularly strong. And then there may be a
big gap and you see another line. Well, that means
that the field is not particularly strong in that area,
but it's still extends to the side. Here's an interesting rule. Okay,
magnetic field lines cannot cross really really and this is
(05:10):
possibly why the Sun is the way it is. When
you look at the Sun, you think of the sun
in um and three major uh layers. Okay, you got
the photosphere, which is the core of it. Uh, that
gets pretty hot. That's that's an understatement. Fift million degrees
(05:32):
or so. Pretty hot. That's pretty hot. Fifteen million degrees. Yes,
that is warmer than Atlanta in the summer. I'm pretty
sure you could make a tray of chicken nuggets in
a pretty short time. Yeah, you can paporize them instantaneously. Yeah,
that that would do it. The surface of the Sun, however,
is a relatively chilly five thousand degrees. Yes, so, uh,
(05:54):
you know you've got the core that that's where you're
getting to the chromosphere. I'm sorry, did you say that
the surface the actual surface of the sun. But beyond
the surface of the sun is something called the corona.
Now the corona can be two million degrees so the corona,
and and people might say, well, how can the corona,
which is the next layer out, how can that be
(06:17):
hotter than the surface of the sun. Uh, And that's
a good question, and we're not entirely sure that we
know the answer. But the possible explanation is that it's
because magnetic field lines are constantly shifting on the surface
of the Sun. And these are relatively small compared to
the the entire mass of the Sun. But because magnetic
(06:38):
field lines cannot cross, any time that one magnetic field
gets close to another, they have to readjust they cannot
cross one another. And that this, this constant shifting, is
what generates the energy necessary to create that massive amount
of heat in the corona, because otherwise you would think, like,
if you think of like a heat source, the heat
(06:59):
dissipates the fur or away you get from the source, right, sure,
So that's why it gets confusing, like how could you
get hotter than the surface if you're further away from
the source of the heat, which presumably would be the
core um. So that's that's part of it. So the
Sun has all these magnetic fields and that's where some
problems can happen. That's true. Yeah. You may have heard
(07:21):
these things called sun spots. Yes, so yeah, go ahead.
I was going to say, sun spots are at least
according to uh to Noah, the government agency, not the
guy with the big boat with the animals. Um, sun
spots are are areas in which the magnetic field is
about times uh stronger than than the Earth's right. Yeah,
(07:45):
and these are and it's it's higher than anywhere else
in the Sun for that matter. So you know that that. Um,
you know, they pop up from time to time. But
what's odd is the temperature on those areas is cooler. Yeah.
What's happening is uh, hot gas is from the core
of the sun rise towards the surface. Okay, so so
(08:05):
here's another thing about the Sun. This is part of
the reason why magnetic fields gets so uh so wound
up on the surface of the Sun or in the
corona even Um, it's that you've got two major forces
at play here. You've got the tendency for hot things
to expand. The Sun is extremely hot, so therefore it's
trying to expand quite a bit. But you also have
(08:26):
the force of gravity because the Sun is very dense
and very large, so it has a very strong gravitational
pull and the gravity is kind of what holds it
together while it's also trying to expand, and this creates
a lot of pressure, which is what sort of can
muck up the magnetic field lines on the surface. Now,
if you get these magnetic field lines clumping together again,
(08:48):
they're not crossing, but they're all kind of gathering into
a space, that's what can suppress that hot gas from
the core from getting to the surface. So that's where
that area of surface begins to cool in comparison to
the rest of the surface of the Sun. It makes
the darker spot on the Sun, that's the Sun's spot.
(09:09):
So yeah, if you were to to look at the
Sun using um uh an electronic telescope, something that's not
going to burn your retinas out, you would actually be
able to see that the there are little spots on
the Sun that are darker than the rest, and that
would be where these magnetic fields are preventing that hot
gas from rising to the surface. Now, sometimes they fix themselves.
(09:31):
Sometimes they fix themselves. Sometimes the magnetic field lines will
become untwisted and the gases will be able to rise
to the surface and the surface will warm up to
the same temperature as the rest of the surface, and
the sun spot will go away. Sometimes they don't, Okay,
then well they don't. Is the big thing? Do you
(09:54):
want to talk about? The big thing? The big thing
the solar flares? Okay, I mean we guess, I guess
we And I was going to uh to add, by
the way, a couple of technical terms, so please do please,
and just a couple of interesting facts too, because the
they're too. Basically, a dark region of the sun spot
is known as the umbra, and there's a lighter region
(10:15):
immediately around it called the pannumbra um. But yeah, it's
it's different. And the reason the reason they are that
color is because of the temperature. But they may seem
very small if you were to see photos of sun spots.
I've seen quite a few of them in photos uh
distributed by NASA. Uh they look pretty small. But keep
(10:36):
in mind that again according to Noah, that the typical
size of one of those teeny tiny sun spots is
about the size of you know, the Earth, So they're
they're actually quite large. They're small in relation to the
size of the sun overall, but in relation to us,
they are enormous. Yes, so yes, solar flavor relative. Yeah,
(11:00):
so solar flyer. So I was talking about how the
magnetic field line sort of clumped together. You can kind
of think of them as coils, like think of think
of a metal cable, alright, that and one end is
secured to something, all right, and then just imagine that
you're twisting that cable and as you twist it, you're
building up tension, and theoretically, uh, well, let's say you
(11:24):
just keep on twisting and twisting and twisting. It's kinking up,
and then eventually it breaks free of whatever you've secured
it to. Yes, okay, it's gonna untangle very violently, very quickly.
The cable is gonna whip around, and I wouldn't want
to be next to it. You wouldn't. You'd get freshed,
might not get cut in half, according to the MythBusters,
(11:45):
but you're gonna get bruised up pretty badly. And yeah,
don't hang a pig next to the sun. I guess
it is the moral of that story. If you've seen
that episode of MythBusters, that makes sense. Otherwise, that's just
the strangest, strangest non sequit or ever, but at any rate,
So the magnetic field lines are like this. They can
coil up and get really really really twisted and if
(12:08):
eventually something has to give. Now, like I said, sometimes
they redistribute and everything's calm and everything's cool, but uh,
actually everything's warming up. But sometimes they snap and not
snap is in break, but snap is in They uncoil
very very quickly and violently, and as a result, material
from the sun and light from the Sun ejects out
(12:30):
into space in a very kind of violent eruption. And
that's what we call solar flare. And uh that mostly
ends up being a lot of light in the complete spectrum,
not just the visible spectrum, but things like X rays,
gamma rays, ultraviolet light that gets ejected out there too,
and uh and most of that is bad for us. Yep.
(12:51):
The the flares, the solar flares can be uh you know,
several million degrees fahrenheit and uh they could again according
to a release as much energy as uh t n T,
like you know, a billion mega tons of t n T.
So it's extremely violent reaction right now. Fortunately, the Earth's
(13:12):
atmosphere and magnetosphere helped protect us against these uh, this
light that comes out from the solar flares, So solar
flares don't tend to bother us too much because the
Earth's atmosphere absorbs a lot of that light, so things
like the gamma rays and X rays, we don't have
to worry about getting I radiated from a solar flare
most of the time. I say most of the time,
(13:33):
because there are exceptions. If you happen to be a
an astronaut in outer space, you could be vulnerable to
the energy released from a solar flare. Now, if you
get into spacecraft, most spacecraft are shielded against such things,
so you're not gonna necessarily suffer the effects. Um, although
you could end up with something akin to a sunburn
(13:54):
or some cellular damage. But from most of the the
material I've read, such damage is not necessarily permanent or
or catastrophic in nature. But it's you know, you still
don't want it to happen. You never want to get hurt,
so um, but it can also do nasty things like
it can if if this energy were to hit, say
(14:16):
a satellite that doesn't have proper shielding on it, it
could actually strip the electrons from the satellite and create
magnetic fields in the satellite, which could fry the satellites electronics.
That seems that seem yeah, that's not good. Now, a
lot of satellites are shielded against this, particularly things like
military satellites. UM, not all of them are because just
(14:38):
you know, it's one of those things where you have
to pour in extra R and D and everything to
to create a shielded satellite. So some communication satellites could
suffer if if a solar flare erupted towards Earth and
uh and we got hit by the energy. Keep in
mind that you know this, this, this, these kind of
activities are happening all over the Sun, and not all
of those are going to be directed at us true,
(15:01):
so we don't necessarily have to worry about this every
time it happens, just when it's pointed at us UM. Now,
solar flares are are can be annoying, but those aren't
the things that are really going to affect us UM
on the ground most of the time, apart from maybe
some disruption of some communications material satellites. What we have
(15:21):
to worry about our c M ease, I mean the
coronal mass eject ejections ronal mass ejections. I'm sorry, no, no, no,
you thought I was getting ready to misspeak and I
didn't know you you were on track. Yeah, coronal mass ejections. Now,
these can sometimes accompany a solar flare, uh, and sometimes
they happen without a solar flare. UM. Coronal mass ejection
(15:45):
is remember we were talking about the corona earlier, that
that area around the sun that's set two million degrees Uh.
A chronal mass ejection is pretty much what sounds like.
It's a mass from the corona being ejected out into space. Again,
it's a it's related to magnetic field lines UM. But
unlike a solar flare, which ejects both light and lots
(16:08):
of particles, a kernel mass ejection does not eject a
lot of light, lots and lots of sub atomic particles though,
and also which in turns sins out a magnetic shock
wave shock wave, yeah, which is not good. No, you
were mentioning magnetic fields like on Earth. Yes, indeed, And
the thing is um. Since these are frequently found around
(16:30):
sun spots, we have an idea of where they're going
to happen. Yeah, although maybe not necessarily when right. Well,
and a couple of CMEs hit us that we're recording
this in in August, and a couple of SMEs um
erupted and and hit us just a few weeks ago. Fortunately,
did not really disrupt that much here on Earth, but
(16:53):
it could have. Um it could have created what we
call like a solar storm. But these CMEs, these these particles,
this magnetic field, it can really mess us up. If
you were have ever really done any experiments with magnets,
then you know that they behave in interesting ways. For example,
if you have a really powerful magnet and you bring
(17:15):
a less powerful magnet within its magnetic field, the less
powerful magnet will adjust its magnetic field to be aligned
with the more powerful magnet. Right, So if you were
to blast, say, I don't know, the Earth with a
huge magnetic shockwave, it could temporarily realign the Earth's magnetic field. Yes,
(17:36):
as a matter of fact, it is likely to compress
in this case, compress the magnetic field of the Earth
on the side the day side, and extended on the
other side, the night side. Yeah, and uh, it's basically
I guess if you could see it, it would sort
of look like it was stretching it out on the
other side, right, and you might go, why the day side, Well,
(17:56):
you know it's a side facing the sun. Yes, yeah,
funny how that happens. So so CMEs can do some
cool stuff, right, I mean one of the cool things
are the auroras, the Aurora borealis and Aurora ostrallis. You
might not necessarily have imagined that those would be related
to the magnetic field, but as it turns out they are. Yeah,
what's happening here is that the magnetic field changes on
(18:20):
on Earth. And of course you know the magnetic fields
originating at the polls, right, That's that's the source where
you know where the links are coming in. So when
the fluctuations hit, Uh, what will happen is that these
these particles, this magnetic field is stripping oxygen and nitrogen
of electrons, ionizing the atmosphere essentially, is what's what's happening now.
(18:45):
Once those uh, those atoms, those oxygen and nitrogen atoms
begin to lose energy, they will recombine with electrons. As
a result, they give off light. It's it's kind of
the you know, it's that's just part of the reaction
is as they get electrons, they'll give off light. And
that's the Aurora or the Aurora borealis and Aurora australis,
(19:05):
And depending on how strong the CME is, you might
be able to see those effects pretty far away from
the polls. There was a famous event in eighteen I
think it was eighteen fifty nine where there was such
a strong CME. Now grant, we didn't even know what
that was at that point, but such a strong one
hit the earth that reportedly people as far south as
(19:26):
Cuba could see the Aurora borealis, which is significant. Yeah,
that's pretty phenomenal. Um. Now, Granted, back in back in
eighteen fifty nine, we didn't have a whole lot of
electronics to screw up, so it's kind of hard to
say how extensive that would have messed up our electronics today.
But they did have problems with telegraph systems and things
(19:46):
of that nature. Um, so that's uh, it's indicative that
we would have suffered problems today if it had happened
that way. Now, stuff things words that I can put
together incentive Well, it's not. It's certainly not the first
noticeable sun spot uh goings on. Um, you know as
(20:08):
far as the past, and we didn't necessarily know what
was going on because um, uh from the mid to
probably the early part of the next century. Uh, the
Mander minimum. Have you heard of this? I do not
know the Maunder minimum. Ha. Well, apparently there was very
little sunspot activity and there were a number of long winters.
(20:30):
Uh and uh, basically this was a little ice age.
I'm sure you've heard of that. Um, And they're they're
not sure. I mean, obviously this is a problem of
not having the instruments and know how at the time.
But it is coincidental that they at least coincidental that
those two things happened right about the same time. But
they're thinking that it is possible that the very low
(20:53):
sun spot activity may have had a part to play
in the little ice age. Also, UM, you know, we're
currently in what they're calling solar cycle twenty four. Uh. Catchy,
I know, isn't it. Um, not that this apparently followed
uh never mind um cycle exactly. But apparently they they
(21:17):
are expecting the scientists are expecting it to peak in
the next year or two. So the feeling we're we're
not going to be We're going to see more than
just the activity from a few weeks here Here's what
here's what irritates me. Why why do we have to
have the horrible coincidence of the Mayan calendar problem and
(21:39):
the sun spots cycle? Because yes, the sun spot cycle
should have a peak either in eleven or twenty twelve.
And as I'm sure many of you have heard, twelve
is the end of the Mayan Long count calendar. Um
or I should say a Mayon long count calendar, because
the mind's actually used multiple calendars and not just that one. Um.
(22:00):
So some people have gone on to say, hey, this
might be what is going to be the end times.
I could know it's a coincidence, folks. I mean, I'm
not gonna say that sunspots won't cause massive problems, because
they can. But um but it has nothing to do
with the Mayan calendar. Just don't even think about that.
So direct all your hate mail too, uh stuff you
(22:23):
should know so chron chronal mass ejections. We talked about
how you know it can it can really create these
powerful auroras where that that magnetic flux causes other problems
as well. I did mention earlier about dynamos where you
use a magnetic field to induce electricity. Yes, sometimes that
can happen even if you didn't intend it to. And yeah,
(22:44):
that is a major oh so for for big, big,
powerful conductors. So we're talking about things like electrical transformers
and power grids. Uh, if you create a magnetic flux
around these, it can induce electricity to flow through them. Now,
if your if your power system has capacity for that,
(23:04):
that's fine. But in North America, our power grid is
operating almost at capacity all the time, so there's really
no room for more power to flow through this system.
And here's the if you were to create more power
in this system, the big problem there would be that
you've got the system that that is already operating as
(23:26):
close to capacity as we can comfortably get. Uh, there's
an overflow issue. It seems strange, but if you put
too much electricity through a power line, it can cause
the power line to snap. And the reason for that, well,
there are multiple reasons. One is that one of the
byproducts of making electricity flow through things because we don't
have any perfect conductors, is it generates heat. So as
(23:49):
power lines heat up, they expand, they sag, and if
they heat up enough, they'll snap. So you run enough
electricity through these things, they will actually weaken and break.
And so a really powerful CME could presumably create a
magnetic field that could cause power lines to snap across
an entire region. It would also cause transformers to suddenly
(24:12):
have massive amounts of electricity flowing through them. These are,
in general what we call bad things because now I'm
not saying it's going to lead to the collapse of civilization,
but it could lead to an entire region, the entire
sector of the power grid going down. And once the
power grid goes down, it really starts to muck up
(24:34):
your ability to handle a crisis because we depend so
heavily upon electricity. Yes, even even portable electronics, you know,
even stuff not connected directly to the grid are affected. Yeah,
something like that. Even even if they weren't directly affected,
Like even if your phone isn't fried, you'd still have
(24:55):
to connect to the system that was actually plugged into
the wall essentially, which is fried, Which is right. Yeah,
So a major CME probably wouldn't make Like you know,
we talked about e m p s. We did that, right,
The elenetic pulse, an electromagnetic pulse is kind of the
same thing. You're creating this huge magnetic field that will
wipe out electronics. Well, it's sort of the same thing
(25:18):
with a CME, except that smaller electronics probably would not
be damaged or affected, so you're not gonna have to
worry about your smartphone suddenly being fried. The problem is
that the cellular network you connect to has been fried,
so you're carrying around the device is still works, but
there's no service to support it. The service you are
trying to reach has been completely obliterating, right, please try
(25:40):
your call again later exactly. So that's that's the real issue.
There is not It's not just that your you know,
electronics could die on you. It's that the support systems
could die on you. Now, if you had, let's say,
a phone that also had a radio function in it,
theoretically you would be able to use that, except for
one small problem, which is that the atmosphere has been
(26:02):
ionized and radio waves don't travel very well throw it,
so it can actually a kernel mass injection can also
disrupt radio signals, which may be problematic since the they're
talking about the possibility of requiring FM receivers, and but
that you've said that just to make me go crazy,
just to MAKEE R I double a oh, requiring all
(26:26):
devices to all that's in the news today with the
day we're recording this, and there's no there's no guarantee
that anything will happen. They're just there are a and
the recording industry executive and the radio industry are are
trying to get electronic manufacturers to put an FM receiver
in pretty much anything that has in order to support
(26:47):
a dying industry. But that's not what our talk. Our
talk is about. We just wanted to push one of
Jonathan's buttons. We could do a full podcast that he
wanted to give me. An aneurysm is what he wanted
to do. Um if we could do a whole podcast
on that. And yes, it has nothing to do with
what we're talking about here, so uh will will see that.
Will a solar event wipe out all electronics on Earth?
(27:10):
Probably not for something like that, something so massive to
do that, because again, it's mostly gonna affect whichever side
that the Earth is facing the Sun at that time,
and it's not even gonna affect the whole surface evenly.
Um So, for something to to be so strong as
to put that kind of strain on the Earth's power
systems I think that the electricity a thing would be
(27:32):
the least of our worries because we'd be bathed in radiation. Um,
that seems bad again. Yeah, and there's no there there's
no evidence that anything like that will happen. Now granted,
there there is the potential for systems to to suffer
in the short term and uh, and that that damage
could be extensive enough to cause some really serious problems.
(27:54):
Like if you imagine, you know, like the blackouts that
we had in years past and things like New York
and calif aren'ta UM, those can cause big issues, especially
if there's an emergency. It makes it much harder for
emergency crews to respond. Um. There are some real problems
that come with this sort of stuff. But it's not
like a global uh twelve or day after tomorrow kind
(28:16):
of situation. Right, Sorry, that's been Hollywood it up a
little bit, a little bit. Yeah, Yeah, I don't think.
I don't think John Cusack will have to do three
back to back chase sequences from in an airplane versus
the Earth if we have a massive CME event in UM.
(28:38):
But he might have difficulty getting cell phone reception. Yeah,
he might have difficult to get cast in another movie.
I like Cusack a lot, but seriously, dude, no, no,
that's on topic. Because twelve was caused supposedly by solar
events affecting the Earth's core in some vaguely scientific way
(28:59):
that made no sense. If you would like to complain,
send your email to stuff you should know. Um, I
just like to keep that meme going because they'll complain
on air about us. We just send complaints to them.
Uh no, they're great guys. Anyway. Yeah, that kind of
wraps this up. That that that's how the sun can
(29:22):
really mess with your electronics. There's not a whole lot
we can do about it, really, except to try and
upgrade to smarter power systems that are shielded against this
kind of thing, because there aren't things that we can
do that like a smart grid, which could you know,
adjust capacity as needed, would theoretically be able to handle
this kind of thing, but we don't have a smart grid.
(29:42):
We're trying to move towards that, but that could take
decades to create. It's a lot of time and a
lot of expense and a lot of labor to get
that switched out right right, So hopefully people will support
that and we'll be able to move to such a
system so that in the event that something like this happens,
we we have as little interruption in our daily lives
(30:03):
as possible. That's the goal that all right, guys, well,
thanks so much for listening. If you have any questions, comments,
topic suggestions, anything like that, you can write us. Our
email address is tech stuff at how stuff Works dot
com and Chris and I will talk to you again
really soon. If you're a tech stuff and be sure
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It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology with
tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello again, everyone,
and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette
and I am an editor at how stuff works dot com.
(00:22):
Sitting across from me as always a senior writer, Jonathan Strickland.
It seems like years since it's been clear. Nice. Yeah,
So here comes the sun. Guys. We're gonna talk about
the sun and how it can affect electronics. You guys
have probably been hearing about this, uh in the news
because we're coming up on the peak of sunspot activity
(00:45):
during its eleven year cycle and uh, and so there's
been a lot of talk about what this might do
to electronics and power grids and that kind of thing.
And we want to kind of talk to you about
what the sun can do, how it can do and why.
You know, we need to be concentrating on things like
upgrading the power of grid at least in North America
(01:06):
to h to prepare ourselves for this kind of stuff. Um. Now, really,
to start off, we need to know what the sun is.
I mean that that would help us tremendously in the discussion.
So it's that big yellow thing up there in the sky. Well,
I would like to refer to a song that was
written by high Zerit and Lose Singer, but was made
(01:28):
more famous by a group called They Might Be Giants. Now,
the song starts with the sun is a mass of
incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace. Now, as it turns
out high and lou and by extension, they might be
giant Scott. That not exactly accurate. So the sun is
(01:51):
not just a mass of incandescent gas a gigantic nuclear furnace. Um,
it's it's a little more complex than that. And in fact,
before I go any further, I should add that They
Might be Giants has since recorded another song that addresses this.
They go into more detail, and it's part of their
children's series, so you can check that out. But what
(02:11):
the sun is, it's a gigantic ball of plasma. Yeah, plasma.
I'm sorry, there's a joke that that in my head
I always say, and I just decided not to go
with it this time. So that's why you had to pause,
because play out. Yes, yeah, it is in fact um
and it has been around for quite some time, and
it isn't expected to be quite some time more because
(02:35):
it is UH gradually using up a vast supply of helium. Yes.
So the sun plasma, we've talked about it many many times.
Plasma is an ionized gas. It's gas that has free
roaming electrons in it. Uh. In the case of the Sun,
the temperatures are so high that that energy strips atoms
(02:56):
of their electrons. That's what causes the electrons to to
fly out. And we've also talked about in the past
that when electrons flow, that's electricity. And one of the
by products of an electrical flow is a magnetic field, right,
And this is what the basis of electromagnets are. That's
that's the whole foundation, right, that you can induce electricity
(03:20):
through by using a magnetic field. That's a that's a
dynamo or did you yeah, Yes, that would be a dynamo, right.
Electromagnet is the other way around. Yeah. I thought that's
where you were going. Yeah, And I realized as I
was saying it that I was going backwards. Electromagnet. You
use electricity to create a magnetic field, m a dynamo,
use a magnetic field to induce electricity. So that's really
(03:42):
the basis of where these problems come from. But we'll
we'll get build a little further. So the Sun is
pretty complex, especially with magnetic fields. The Earth, as a comparison,
is very simple. If you look at the Earth, if
you were to be able to look at the Earth
and think of it like a you know, you make
(04:02):
the Earth kind of a clear ball, um, the magnetic
field would go around the Earth as if there was
a small bar magnet running through the center of the
Earth with the north pole in the south pole. Yeah,
if you look inside your head right now, you'll see
an illustration of exactly what we're talking about. Yeah, it's
a lot harder for us to actually show this on
an audio podcast, but the the idea here being that
(04:25):
you would have these magnetic fields that link the one
pole of the magnet to the other pole. And uh,
we usually draw these out by these big loops. And
if you ever look at a drawing of a magnetic field,
you'll see these lines we call magnetic field lines. Um
that that kind of give you an indication of how
(04:45):
strong the fields are. If you see lots of lines
parallel to one another. That means that that's where the
field is particularly strong. And then there may be a
big gap and you see another line. Well, that means
that the field is not particularly strong in that area,
but it's still extends to the side. Here's an interesting rule. Okay,
magnetic field lines cannot cross really really and this is
(05:10):
possibly why the Sun is the way it is. When
you look at the Sun, you think of the sun
in um and three major uh layers. Okay, you got
the photosphere, which is the core of it. Uh, that
gets pretty hot. That's that's an understatement. Fift million degrees
(05:32):
or so. Pretty hot. That's pretty hot. Fifteen million degrees. Yes,
that is warmer than Atlanta in the summer. I'm pretty
sure you could make a tray of chicken nuggets in
a pretty short time. Yeah, you can paporize them instantaneously. Yeah,
that that would do it. The surface of the Sun, however,
is a relatively chilly five thousand degrees. Yes, so, uh,
(05:54):
you know you've got the core that that's where you're
getting to the chromosphere. I'm sorry, did you say that
the surface the actual surface of the sun. But beyond
the surface of the sun is something called the corona.
Now the corona can be two million degrees so the corona,
and and people might say, well, how can the corona,
which is the next layer out, how can that be
(06:17):
hotter than the surface of the sun. Uh, And that's
a good question, and we're not entirely sure that we
know the answer. But the possible explanation is that it's
because magnetic field lines are constantly shifting on the surface
of the Sun. And these are relatively small compared to
the the entire mass of the Sun. But because magnetic
(06:38):
field lines cannot cross, any time that one magnetic field
gets close to another, they have to readjust they cannot
cross one another. And that this, this constant shifting, is
what generates the energy necessary to create that massive amount
of heat in the corona, because otherwise you would think, like,
if you think of like a heat source, the heat
(06:59):
dissipates the fur or away you get from the source, right, sure,
So that's why it gets confusing, like how could you
get hotter than the surface if you're further away from
the source of the heat, which presumably would be the
core um. So that's that's part of it. So the
Sun has all these magnetic fields and that's where some
problems can happen. That's true. Yeah. You may have heard
(07:21):
these things called sun spots. Yes, so yeah, go ahead.
I was going to say, sun spots are at least
according to uh to Noah, the government agency, not the
guy with the big boat with the animals. Um, sun
spots are are areas in which the magnetic field is
about times uh stronger than than the Earth's right. Yeah,
(07:45):
and these are and it's it's higher than anywhere else
in the Sun for that matter. So you know that that. Um,
you know, they pop up from time to time. But
what's odd is the temperature on those areas is cooler. Yeah.
What's happening is uh, hot gas is from the core
of the sun rise towards the surface. Okay, so so
(08:05):
here's another thing about the Sun. This is part of
the reason why magnetic fields gets so uh so wound
up on the surface of the Sun or in the
corona even Um, it's that you've got two major forces
at play here. You've got the tendency for hot things
to expand. The Sun is extremely hot, so therefore it's
trying to expand quite a bit. But you also have
(08:26):
the force of gravity because the Sun is very dense
and very large, so it has a very strong gravitational
pull and the gravity is kind of what holds it
together while it's also trying to expand, and this creates
a lot of pressure, which is what sort of can
muck up the magnetic field lines on the surface. Now,
if you get these magnetic field lines clumping together again,
(08:48):
they're not crossing, but they're all kind of gathering into
a space, that's what can suppress that hot gas from
the core from getting to the surface. So that's where
that area of surface begins to cool in comparison to
the rest of the surface of the Sun. It makes
the darker spot on the Sun, that's the Sun's spot.
(09:09):
So yeah, if you were to to look at the
Sun using um uh an electronic telescope, something that's not
going to burn your retinas out, you would actually be
able to see that the there are little spots on
the Sun that are darker than the rest, and that
would be where these magnetic fields are preventing that hot
gas from rising to the surface. Now, sometimes they fix themselves.
(09:31):
Sometimes they fix themselves. Sometimes the magnetic field lines will
become untwisted and the gases will be able to rise
to the surface and the surface will warm up to
the same temperature as the rest of the surface, and
the sun spot will go away. Sometimes they don't, Okay,
then well they don't. Is the big thing? Do you
(09:54):
want to talk about? The big thing? The big thing
the solar flares? Okay, I mean we guess, I guess
we And I was going to uh to add, by
the way, a couple of technical terms, so please do please,
and just a couple of interesting facts too, because the
they're too. Basically, a dark region of the sun spot
is known as the umbra, and there's a lighter region
(10:15):
immediately around it called the pannumbra um. But yeah, it's
it's different. And the reason the reason they are that
color is because of the temperature. But they may seem
very small if you were to see photos of sun spots.
I've seen quite a few of them in photos uh
distributed by NASA. Uh they look pretty small. But keep
(10:36):
in mind that again according to Noah, that the typical
size of one of those teeny tiny sun spots is
about the size of you know, the Earth, So they're
they're actually quite large. They're small in relation to the
size of the sun overall, but in relation to us,
they are enormous. Yes, so yes, solar flavor relative. Yeah,
(11:00):
so solar flyer. So I was talking about how the
magnetic field line sort of clumped together. You can kind
of think of them as coils, like think of think
of a metal cable, alright, that and one end is
secured to something, all right, and then just imagine that
you're twisting that cable and as you twist it, you're
building up tension, and theoretically, uh, well, let's say you
(11:24):
just keep on twisting and twisting and twisting. It's kinking up,
and then eventually it breaks free of whatever you've secured
it to. Yes, okay, it's gonna untangle very violently, very quickly.
The cable is gonna whip around, and I wouldn't want
to be next to it. You wouldn't. You'd get freshed,
might not get cut in half, according to the MythBusters,
(11:45):
but you're gonna get bruised up pretty badly. And yeah,
don't hang a pig next to the sun. I guess
it is the moral of that story. If you've seen
that episode of MythBusters, that makes sense. Otherwise, that's just
the strangest, strangest non sequit or ever, but at any rate,
So the magnetic field lines are like this. They can
coil up and get really really really twisted and if
(12:08):
eventually something has to give. Now, like I said, sometimes
they redistribute and everything's calm and everything's cool, but uh,
actually everything's warming up. But sometimes they snap and not
snap is in break, but snap is in They uncoil
very very quickly and violently, and as a result, material
from the sun and light from the Sun ejects out
(12:30):
into space in a very kind of violent eruption. And
that's what we call solar flare. And uh that mostly
ends up being a lot of light in the complete spectrum,
not just the visible spectrum, but things like X rays,
gamma rays, ultraviolet light that gets ejected out there too,
and uh and most of that is bad for us. Yep.
(12:51):
The the flares, the solar flares can be uh you know,
several million degrees fahrenheit and uh they could again according
to a release as much energy as uh t n T,
like you know, a billion mega tons of t n T.
So it's extremely violent reaction right now. Fortunately, the Earth's
(13:12):
atmosphere and magnetosphere helped protect us against these uh, this
light that comes out from the solar flares, So solar
flares don't tend to bother us too much because the
Earth's atmosphere absorbs a lot of that light, so things
like the gamma rays and X rays, we don't have
to worry about getting I radiated from a solar flare
most of the time. I say most of the time,
(13:33):
because there are exceptions. If you happen to be a
an astronaut in outer space, you could be vulnerable to
the energy released from a solar flare. Now, if you
get into spacecraft, most spacecraft are shielded against such things,
so you're not gonna necessarily suffer the effects. Um, although
you could end up with something akin to a sunburn
(13:54):
or some cellular damage. But from most of the the
material I've read, such damage is not necessarily permanent or
or catastrophic in nature. But it's you know, you still
don't want it to happen. You never want to get hurt,
so um, but it can also do nasty things like
it can if if this energy were to hit, say
(14:16):
a satellite that doesn't have proper shielding on it, it
could actually strip the electrons from the satellite and create
magnetic fields in the satellite, which could fry the satellites electronics.
That seems that seem yeah, that's not good. Now, a
lot of satellites are shielded against this, particularly things like
military satellites. UM, not all of them are because just
(14:38):
you know, it's one of those things where you have
to pour in extra R and D and everything to
to create a shielded satellite. So some communication satellites could
suffer if if a solar flare erupted towards Earth and
uh and we got hit by the energy. Keep in
mind that you know this, this, this, these kind of
activities are happening all over the Sun, and not all
of those are going to be directed at us true,
(15:01):
so we don't necessarily have to worry about this every
time it happens, just when it's pointed at us UM. Now,
solar flares are are can be annoying, but those aren't
the things that are really going to affect us UM
on the ground most of the time, apart from maybe
some disruption of some communications material satellites. What we have
(15:21):
to worry about our c M ease, I mean the
coronal mass eject ejections ronal mass ejections. I'm sorry, no, no, no,
you thought I was getting ready to misspeak and I
didn't know you you were on track. Yeah, coronal mass ejections. Now,
these can sometimes accompany a solar flare, uh, and sometimes
they happen without a solar flare. UM. Coronal mass ejection
(15:45):
is remember we were talking about the corona earlier, that
that area around the sun that's set two million degrees Uh.
A chronal mass ejection is pretty much what sounds like.
It's a mass from the corona being ejected out into space. Again,
it's a it's related to magnetic field lines UM. But
unlike a solar flare, which ejects both light and lots
(16:08):
of particles, a kernel mass ejection does not eject a
lot of light, lots and lots of sub atomic particles though,
and also which in turns sins out a magnetic shock
wave shock wave, yeah, which is not good. No, you
were mentioning magnetic fields like on Earth. Yes, indeed, And
the thing is um. Since these are frequently found around
(16:30):
sun spots, we have an idea of where they're going
to happen. Yeah, although maybe not necessarily when right. Well,
and a couple of CMEs hit us that we're recording
this in in August, and a couple of SMEs um
erupted and and hit us just a few weeks ago. Fortunately,
did not really disrupt that much here on Earth, but
(16:53):
it could have. Um it could have created what we
call like a solar storm. But these CMEs, these these particles,
this magnetic field, it can really mess us up. If
you were have ever really done any experiments with magnets,
then you know that they behave in interesting ways. For example,
if you have a really powerful magnet and you bring
(17:15):
a less powerful magnet within its magnetic field, the less
powerful magnet will adjust its magnetic field to be aligned
with the more powerful magnet. Right, So if you were
to blast, say, I don't know, the Earth with a
huge magnetic shockwave, it could temporarily realign the Earth's magnetic field. Yes,
(17:36):
as a matter of fact, it is likely to compress
in this case, compress the magnetic field of the Earth
on the side the day side, and extended on the
other side, the night side. Yeah, and uh, it's basically
I guess if you could see it, it would sort
of look like it was stretching it out on the
other side, right, and you might go, why the day side, Well,
(17:56):
you know it's a side facing the sun. Yes, yeah,
funny how that happens. So so CMEs can do some
cool stuff, right, I mean one of the cool things
are the auroras, the Aurora borealis and Aurora ostrallis. You
might not necessarily have imagined that those would be related
to the magnetic field, but as it turns out they are. Yeah,
what's happening here is that the magnetic field changes on
(18:20):
on Earth. And of course you know the magnetic fields
originating at the polls, right, That's that's the source where
you know where the links are coming in. So when
the fluctuations hit, Uh, what will happen is that these
these particles, this magnetic field is stripping oxygen and nitrogen
of electrons, ionizing the atmosphere essentially, is what's what's happening now.
(18:45):
Once those uh, those atoms, those oxygen and nitrogen atoms
begin to lose energy, they will recombine with electrons. As
a result, they give off light. It's it's kind of
the you know, it's that's just part of the reaction
is as they get electrons, they'll give off light. And
that's the Aurora or the Aurora borealis and Aurora australis,
(19:05):
And depending on how strong the CME is, you might
be able to see those effects pretty far away from
the polls. There was a famous event in eighteen I
think it was eighteen fifty nine where there was such
a strong CME. Now grant, we didn't even know what
that was at that point, but such a strong one
hit the earth that reportedly people as far south as
(19:26):
Cuba could see the Aurora borealis, which is significant. Yeah,
that's pretty phenomenal. Um. Now, Granted, back in back in
eighteen fifty nine, we didn't have a whole lot of
electronics to screw up, so it's kind of hard to
say how extensive that would have messed up our electronics today.
But they did have problems with telegraph systems and things
(19:46):
of that nature. Um, so that's uh, it's indicative that
we would have suffered problems today if it had happened
that way. Now, stuff things words that I can put
together incentive Well, it's not. It's certainly not the first
noticeable sun spot uh goings on. Um, you know as
(20:08):
far as the past, and we didn't necessarily know what
was going on because um, uh from the mid to
probably the early part of the next century. Uh, the
Mander minimum. Have you heard of this? I do not
know the Maunder minimum. Ha. Well, apparently there was very
little sunspot activity and there were a number of long winters.
(20:30):
Uh and uh, basically this was a little ice age.
I'm sure you've heard of that. Um, And they're they're
not sure. I mean, obviously this is a problem of
not having the instruments and know how at the time.
But it is coincidental that they at least coincidental that
those two things happened right about the same time. But
they're thinking that it is possible that the very low
(20:53):
sun spot activity may have had a part to play
in the little ice age. Also, UM, you know, we're
currently in what they're calling solar cycle twenty four. Uh. Catchy,
I know, isn't it. Um, not that this apparently followed
uh never mind um cycle exactly. But apparently they they
(21:17):
are expecting the scientists are expecting it to peak in
the next year or two. So the feeling we're we're
not going to be We're going to see more than
just the activity from a few weeks here Here's what
here's what irritates me. Why why do we have to
have the horrible coincidence of the Mayan calendar problem and
(21:39):
the sun spots cycle? Because yes, the sun spot cycle
should have a peak either in eleven or twenty twelve.
And as I'm sure many of you have heard, twelve
is the end of the Mayan Long count calendar. Um
or I should say a Mayon long count calendar, because
the mind's actually used multiple calendars and not just that one. Um.
(22:00):
So some people have gone on to say, hey, this
might be what is going to be the end times.
I could know it's a coincidence, folks. I mean, I'm
not gonna say that sunspots won't cause massive problems, because
they can. But um but it has nothing to do
with the Mayan calendar. Just don't even think about that.
So direct all your hate mail too, uh stuff you
(22:23):
should know so chron chronal mass ejections. We talked about
how you know it can it can really create these
powerful auroras where that that magnetic flux causes other problems
as well. I did mention earlier about dynamos where you
use a magnetic field to induce electricity. Yes, sometimes that
can happen even if you didn't intend it to. And yeah,
(22:44):
that is a major oh so for for big, big,
powerful conductors. So we're talking about things like electrical transformers
and power grids. Uh, if you create a magnetic flux
around these, it can induce electricity to flow through them. Now,
if your if your power system has capacity for that,
(23:04):
that's fine. But in North America, our power grid is
operating almost at capacity all the time, so there's really
no room for more power to flow through this system.
And here's the if you were to create more power
in this system, the big problem there would be that
you've got the system that that is already operating as
(23:26):
close to capacity as we can comfortably get. Uh, there's
an overflow issue. It seems strange, but if you put
too much electricity through a power line, it can cause
the power line to snap. And the reason for that, well,
there are multiple reasons. One is that one of the
byproducts of making electricity flow through things because we don't
have any perfect conductors, is it generates heat. So as
(23:49):
power lines heat up, they expand, they sag, and if
they heat up enough, they'll snap. So you run enough
electricity through these things, they will actually weaken and break.
And so a really powerful CME could presumably create a
magnetic field that could cause power lines to snap across
an entire region. It would also cause transformers to suddenly
(24:12):
have massive amounts of electricity flowing through them. These are,
in general what we call bad things because now I'm
not saying it's going to lead to the collapse of civilization,
but it could lead to an entire region, the entire
sector of the power grid going down. And once the
power grid goes down, it really starts to muck up
(24:34):
your ability to handle a crisis because we depend so
heavily upon electricity. Yes, even even portable electronics, you know,
even stuff not connected directly to the grid are affected. Yeah,
something like that. Even even if they weren't directly affected,
Like even if your phone isn't fried, you'd still have
(24:55):
to connect to the system that was actually plugged into
the wall essentially, which is fried, Which is right. Yeah,
So a major CME probably wouldn't make Like you know,
we talked about e m p s. We did that, right,
The elenetic pulse, an electromagnetic pulse is kind of the
same thing. You're creating this huge magnetic field that will
wipe out electronics. Well, it's sort of the same thing
(25:18):
with a CME, except that smaller electronics probably would not
be damaged or affected, so you're not gonna have to
worry about your smartphone suddenly being fried. The problem is
that the cellular network you connect to has been fried,
so you're carrying around the device is still works, but
there's no service to support it. The service you are
trying to reach has been completely obliterating, right, please try
(25:40):
your call again later exactly. So that's that's the real issue.
There is not It's not just that your you know,
electronics could die on you. It's that the support systems
could die on you. Now, if you had, let's say,
a phone that also had a radio function in it,
theoretically you would be able to use that, except for
one small problem, which is that the atmosphere has been
(26:02):
ionized and radio waves don't travel very well throw it,
so it can actually a kernel mass injection can also
disrupt radio signals, which may be problematic since the they're
talking about the possibility of requiring FM receivers, and but
that you've said that just to make me go crazy,
just to MAKEE R I double a oh, requiring all
(26:26):
devices to all that's in the news today with the
day we're recording this, and there's no there's no guarantee
that anything will happen. They're just there are a and
the recording industry executive and the radio industry are are
trying to get electronic manufacturers to put an FM receiver
in pretty much anything that has in order to support
(26:47):
a dying industry. But that's not what our talk. Our
talk is about. We just wanted to push one of
Jonathan's buttons. We could do a full podcast that he
wanted to give me. An aneurysm is what he wanted
to do. Um if we could do a whole podcast
on that. And yes, it has nothing to do with
what we're talking about here, so uh will will see that.
Will a solar event wipe out all electronics on Earth?
(27:10):
Probably not for something like that, something so massive to
do that, because again, it's mostly gonna affect whichever side
that the Earth is facing the Sun at that time,
and it's not even gonna affect the whole surface evenly.
Um So, for something to to be so strong as
to put that kind of strain on the Earth's power
systems I think that the electricity a thing would be
(27:32):
the least of our worries because we'd be bathed in radiation. Um,
that seems bad again. Yeah, and there's no there there's
no evidence that anything like that will happen. Now granted,
there there is the potential for systems to to suffer
in the short term and uh, and that that damage
could be extensive enough to cause some really serious problems.
(27:54):
Like if you imagine, you know, like the blackouts that
we had in years past and things like New York
and calif aren'ta UM, those can cause big issues, especially
if there's an emergency. It makes it much harder for
emergency crews to respond. Um. There are some real problems
that come with this sort of stuff. But it's not
like a global uh twelve or day after tomorrow kind
(28:16):
of situation. Right, Sorry, that's been Hollywood it up a
little bit, a little bit. Yeah, Yeah, I don't think.
I don't think John Cusack will have to do three
back to back chase sequences from in an airplane versus
the Earth if we have a massive CME event in UM.
(28:38):
But he might have difficulty getting cell phone reception. Yeah,
he might have difficult to get cast in another movie.
I like Cusack a lot, but seriously, dude, no, no,
that's on topic. Because twelve was caused supposedly by solar
events affecting the Earth's core in some vaguely scientific way
(28:59):
that made no sense. If you would like to complain,
send your email to stuff you should know. Um, I
just like to keep that meme going because they'll complain
on air about us. We just send complaints to them.
Uh no, they're great guys. Anyway. Yeah, that kind of
wraps this up. That that that's how the sun can
(29:22):
really mess with your electronics. There's not a whole lot
we can do about it, really, except to try and
upgrade to smarter power systems that are shielded against this
kind of thing, because there aren't things that we can
do that like a smart grid, which could you know,
adjust capacity as needed, would theoretically be able to handle
this kind of thing, but we don't have a smart grid.
(29:42):
We're trying to move towards that, but that could take
decades to create. It's a lot of time and a
lot of expense and a lot of labor to get
that switched out right right, So hopefully people will support
that and we'll be able to move to such a
system so that in the event that something like this happens,
we we have as little interruption in our daily lives
(30:03):
as possible. That's the goal that all right, guys, well,
thanks so much for listening. If you have any questions, comments,
topic suggestions, anything like that, you can write us. Our
email address is tech stuff at how stuff Works dot
com and Chris and I will talk to you again
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