coronal mass ejection Concepts

The New Gold Rush: The Riches of Space Beckon!

by Joseph N. Pelton · 5 Nov 2016 · 321pp · 89,109 words

than having a very broad focus, are today concerned with essentially three things only: Earth weather, and especially extreme weather conditions, solar weather (flares and coronal mass ejections), and climate change. Governmental satellite systems that are deployed for military intelligence and strategic surveillance have even greater precision in their observational capabilities, with the

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provided from LEO satellites. These satellites equipped with radiometers and other sensors can also detect changes to the Sun and provide warnings related to violent coronal mass ejections that can knock out power grids. Satellites that are not powered down during these powerful solar events are also quite vulnerable Further these meteorological satellites

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. In recent years the sharing of key data has improved to include not only data concerning Earth-based weather conditions but also solar storms and coronal mass ejections and climate change information as well. The U. S. National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA ), for instance, now operates a portal that provides near real

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must be complementary strategies to address the problems of space debris, and even evolve new strategies to cope with climate change, cosmic hazards such as coronal mass ejections and asteroid strikes on Earth. The New Space economy thus includes a wide range of new concepts for the global economy that include sustainability, recycling

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and the atmosphere, current levels of solar radiation would cause major genetic mutations, and perhaps kill off most life forms as we know them. Further coronal mass ejections without the protective shielding of the Van Allen Belts as formed by the magnetic poles could perhaps destroy all of the power as well as

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systems we actually become more and more vulnerable to massive solar storms . Actually, the probability of modern industrial society being wiped out by a massive coronal mass ejection is far greater than the likelihood of it being wiped out by a wayward space rock. For years people said that things like trains, automobiles

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and create a system in outer space that is a solar shield that could temper the effects of solar radiation and block the most destructive coronal mass ejections that would threaten our satellites, electrical power systems, and communications and IT systems. This may sound like “pie-in-the-sky” or Venetian blinds in

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comet impact. Even some future electromagnetic systems that could be used as a weapon might also be employed as part of a defensive system against coronal mass ejections. This could be important in the next few years if Earth’s magnetic poles reverse and our natural electromagnetic shields, i.e., the Van Allen

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block out the Sun, we will be ill-prepared. And, there is an even bigger threat, in terms of likelihood of occurrence, and that is coronal mass ejection. Today’s modern economies and patterns of employment have created a world that is increasingly dependent on access to electric power grids, application satellites and

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profiles prepared in Germany suggest that the Van Allen Belts might be reduced to 15 % of their effectiveness in warding off a major coronal mass ejection . And asteroids, comets and coronal mass ejections are not the only hazards. Solar flares can cause genetic damage and elevate the incidence of cancer. Each year the number of derelict

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after a truly major hit . The greatest danger of all comes from the ion storms that can come from the Sun in the form of coronal mass ejections (see Fig. 7.2). In the middle of the nineteenth century, the risks to electrical systems were small because such systems did not exist. The

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event of 2003 damaged the electrical grid in Scandinavia. These are real-world events that are indicators that we are today increasingly vulnerable to major coronal mass ejections. Heavy duty CMEs are more powerful than a nuclear blast by far. They can create natural electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) that can outdo the biggest of

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manmade bombs. Fig. 7.2A major coronal mass ejection could destroy electrical grids and satellite nets (Image courtesy of NASA.) If these eruptions of ionic mass—rather than electromagnetic radiation—should burst out from

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the right direction to hit Earth, then great damage to a wide spectra of modern infrastructure is not only possible but guaranteed. A massive enough coronal mass ejection hitting Earth could possibly damage and take offline critical satellite networks, cripple electrical grids and pipelines, and possibly adversely affect information and communications networks and

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of the key steps that might be taken:Doing national and international risk assessments of the nature of cosmic risks from asteroids, comets, solar flares, coronal mass ejections, magnetosphere shifts and reduced protective shielding from the Van Allen Belts, the risks associated with orbital debris increases, and also identification of possible protective strategies

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build some centuries in the future. More modest ideas include the building of a “space shield” at LaGrange Point 1 to protect Earth from violent coronal mass ejections from the Sun. Such shields would be for the coming period in the next few decades when the natural protection from the Van Allen Belts

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habitation, would likely involve using the soil of the Moon or Mars to provide protection against hazards from the Sun, such as ionic blasts from coronal mass ejections or X-ray or gamma radiation. Such underground vaults can be better protected against loss of oxygen and major breaches that could create exposure to

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efforts of space agencies. Space agencies have a clear and logical concern about the mounting threat of space debris and other space hazards such as coronal mass ejections. The Inter-Agency Space Debris Coordination Committee (IADC ) actually took the lead in developing guidelines to restrict the new creation of space debris . These guidelines

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and the ozone layer, and concerns related to shifts in Earth’s magnetic poles and reduction of the Van Allen Belts’ ability to protect again coronal mass ejections. This should be addressed by U. N. COPUOS and the InterAgency Advisory Committee established to address cosmic hazards and planetary defense . 16. Space launch services

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magnetically formed ionic matter largely protect us from solar storms and especially periodic blasts of ions that stream out from the Sun. These are the coronal mass ejections . There are other cosmic hazards that we travelers on spaceship Earth need to worry about as well, such as potentially hazardous asteroids and comets. Fortunately

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the space agencies to start doing their jobs. There are at least three top priorities. The first is to create a Sun shield against solar coronal mass ejections that are going to become increasingly lethal as the shift of Earth’s magnetic poles erode the natural protection offered by the Van Allen Belts

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humanity. These include a major asteroid or comet strike, with an asteroid of 35 m in diameter being a “major city killer,” solar radiation flares, coronal mass ejections from the Sun, shifts in Earth’s magnetic field that alter the Van Allen Belt’s protective shielding of Earth, and runaway orbital space debris

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to the rind of the apple. The Van Allen Belts formed by Earth’s magnetic poles is all that protects us from destruction from periodic coronal mass ejections from the Sun. U. N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS)A committee that meets once a year in Vienna. It has

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satellites Communications satellite industry business entities categories of DABS Conventional communications satellite systems COPUOS SeeU.N. Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) Coronal mass ejections Cosmic hazards asteroids and comets debris defense GPS Navstar system planetary defense protection risk solar storms space debris COTS SeeCommercial off-the-self (COTS) D

Sunfall

by Jim Al-Khalili · 17 Apr 2019 · 381pp · 120,361 words

1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 PART II: Coronal Mass Ejection Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter

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later, with the storm showing no signs of abating, he too would die, but of starvation rather than the fatal radiation exposure from the powerful coronal mass ejection that had taken the lives of the rest of his tribe, the shelter of his cave offering him the cruel protection that had pointlessly prolonged

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them if it reached hazardous levels. But when it came to dangerous radiation from space, nothing could compete with a well-aimed blast from a coronal mass ejection. Until a few years ago, these enormous bubbles of hot plasma spat out by the Sun were of interest only to solar physicists. Sarah recalled

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hard to keep abreast of scientific developments. Sarah sometimes found it frustrating that many other journalists, scientifically illiterate hacks, now regarded themselves as experts on coronal mass ejections. Their interest was certainly understandable given the very real threat CMEs were beginning to pose, and at least they were reporting on them. And that

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that they did solid science and that it would be crazy not to support them in the current climate. ‘Search past twenty-four hours. Filter. Coronal mass ejection. Solar Science Institute. Statement.’ The results came back quickly. There were over two million internet sites reporting on an interview given by a Dr Sarah

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dry to the press; surely there wasn’t any more she could possibly say about solar cycles, solar storms, solar flares, sunspots, solar wind or coronal mass ejections. The media attention was finally waning now after a whirlwind few days and she felt drained, but she was still a long way from being

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growing number of holes in the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere and the general heightened levels of radiation exposure, but a direct hit from coronal mass ejections was something new to many, and the fact that this one seemed to have been directly responsible for bringing down Flight AI-231 had captured

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field intensity drops much further – maybe to just a few per cent of its full capacity. And if we get another direct hit from a coronal mass ejection.’ ‘And if we get through this?’ ‘Once the field has flipped, things should recover quickly, and everything will be business as usual. Of course, it

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at full strength. Now watch what happens in the event of a direct hit from a CME.’ As she spoke, the animation showed an approaching coronal mass ejection, a colourful cloud of plasma far larger than the Earth. When it slammed into the magnetosphere it caused the field lines to distort and stretch

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physicist by the name of Sarah Maitlin who, until a fortnight ago, had been an anonymous academic working at a research institute in Brazil modelling coronal mass ejections, who had been suddenly plunged into the media spotlight after the Air India plane crash and now seemed to have been recruited onto the UN

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so many other scientists being drafted in. What she hadn’t been prepared for was the secrecy. While her warnings about the heightened danger of coronal mass ejections hitting the Earth were being taken very seriously within the corridors of power, both at the UN and elsewhere, in public and across the networks

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the point when Sarah had voiced her central misgivings about the entire plan. No one appreciated the sheer strength of the punch that a massive coronal mass ejection could deliver better than she did. Were they really naive enough to think they could stop one? ‘I know you aren’t expecting me to

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Frank like it might actually work: gigantic toroidal superconducting magnets out in space that would send out intense electromagnetic pulses timed to meet any incoming coronal mass ejections and deflect them, just as the Earth’s natural magnetic field had done for billions of years. The advantages of having the device in space

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proposal that everyone was talking about. As far as he could see, it would, even if successful, be at best just a temporary fix – deflecting coronal mass ejections was not a permanent solution to the loss of the magnetosphere. The planet’s atmosphere would continue to be gradually eroded by the solar wind

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and drone–Earth radio signals would be dramatically compromised by any large geomagnetic disturbance. None of this was implemented, since no one knew this particular coronal mass ejection was coming. Until it was too late. 29 Wednesday, 13 March – Rio de Janeiro Joining the orderly AI-controlled morning traffic, Sarah enjoyed the freedom

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laughed at her and she had left them to die. And she dreamed too about how much worse things were going to get. Interlude The coronal mass ejection had been heading towards Earth for twenty-one hours. As it passed the first Lagrange point, a million miles from Earth, it washed over the

Seveneves

by Neal Stephenson · 19 May 2015 · 945pp · 292,893 words

could make that Endurance didn’t already have. Eleven weeks following the Break, a solar flare had occurred, followed by an event known as a coronal mass ejection: a vast release of charged particles hurled out from the sun into the solar system. With its array of sensors, some of which were always

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little exposure to its radiation. They had no way of knowing, though, whether the Swarm had even received or understood the warning. The danger of coronal mass ejections had been well understood by the Arkitects, who had provided “storm shelters” in each arklet: sleeping bags, in effect, made so that water could be

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it seemed unlikely that all eight hundred Arkies had made it through the storm unscathed. In the ensuing three years there had been ten more coronal mass ejections big enough to worry about. Endurance had transmitted a warning to the Swarm in each of those cases but never received an acknowledgment. It was

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up over the last three years, they knew that J.B.F. had moved swiftly to consolidate her power, exploiting the crisis of the first coronal mass ejection—which had killed something like 10 percent of the population—to set up her own version of martial law. From there the trains had run

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a big delta vee. That meant spending a lot of water that you were never going to get back. Less water meant less shielding from coronal mass ejections, limited food production, and hobbled maneuvering when bad rocks came at you. Getting a whole Swarm to agree on that course of action was impossible

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between one and three days from now. I’ll provide better estimates as soon as I have more data.” They all considered it. Until recently, coronal mass ejections had been of little concern to them except insofar as they made them wonder how the people of the Swarm were getting along. As for

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spreading cables and struts. Where they walked, it was dark most of the time. That was the price of being sheltered from cosmic rays and coronal mass ejections. Looking up, however, they could see sunlight gilding the edges of the crevasse above them. They talked about how to set up mirrors that would

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the Hard Rain had, of course, been much worse. And few of the Arkies had adopted spiritualist beliefs per se. But after a particularly severe coronal mass ejection had slain nearly a hundred Arkies, Tav had written a blog post about the journey he had made to Bhutan with Doob and the conversation

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places in the solar system were as safe as the one where they had come to rest. No cosmic radiation could touch them here. From coronal mass ejections they were equally immune. Sunlight for energy and agriculture could be had a short distance above them, high on the walls of the crevasse, where

Practical Doomsday: A User's Guide to the End of the World

by Michal Zalewski · 11 Jan 2022 · 337pp · 96,666 words

to worry about today. Among all the popular cosmic threats, one type of space weather event is well within the realm of possibility: a large coronal mass ejection (CME). CMEs are a recurring phenomenon in which blobs of electrically charged plasma are ejected by the sun and hurled toward Earth. Most of the

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time of a surge, although ordinary fuses and surge protectors should save many devices from irreversible harm. The saving grace is that the threat of coronal mass ejections is well understood by grid operators, and that many countries are making investments to manage the risk. It’s also worth noting that it takes

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case, an EMP would not be the most pronounced concern. That being said, because the effects of nuclear electromagnetic pulses have much in common with coronal mass ejections, not to mention with power outages and surges caused by storms or lightning strikes, the threat can be addressed to a reasonable extent without necessarily

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a catastrophe is a perennial favorite in the prepper community, though the mechanism bringing it about is never explained in detail. A passing mention of coronal mass ejections or nuclear EMPs (see Chapter 4) is usually the best you can get. Absent a clear explanation, the focus is strictly on the outcome: a

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band (CB) radios, 186 class tensions, 72–73 clathrate gun hypothesis, 33 cleaning, 148 climate change, 18, 33–34 clip-on pulse oximeters, 150 CME (coronal mass ejection), 35–36 cocaine, 100 coincidence of wants, 58 coins, 59–63 collectibles, 86–87, 201 Colorado floods, 11 come-alongs, 162–163 commodity futures options

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, 72–73 constitutional carry, 206 consumer debt, 53–54 consumer lending, 63 consumer prices, 70–71 contraceptives, 150 convictions, 6–8 cooking, 158 CoreLogic, 110 coronal mass ejection (CME), 35–36 cosmic threats, 35–36 cost of living, 11 cough, 150 court fights, 69–70 coveralls, 175 COVID-19 pandemic, 25–26, 174

The End of Astronauts: Why Robots Are the Future of Exploration

by Donald Goldsmith and Martin Rees · 18 Apr 2022 · 192pp · 63,813 words

this incoming flux that penetrates to ground level, but on occasion the sun produces giant clouds of much more energetic, more dangerous subatomic fragments. These coronal mass ejections (CMEs), typically signaled by blazes of light called solar flares, erupt from the solar corona, the layer of highly rarefied, million-degree gases above the

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electron volts), ordinary solar wind particles have energies around 1 / 1000 MeV. Solar storm particles have energies close to 1 MeV, and the particles from coronal mass ejections come in at 10 to 100 MeV. Cosmic ray particles, potentially the most damaging, appear in the 100–1000 MeV range. Thus the particles’ energies

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falls into three basic categories, as discussed in Chapter 3: constant solar wind particles, sudden fluxes of much higher-energy particles from the sun’s coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and a continuous flow of cosmic ray particles from the cosmos. As we saw when assessing hazards to astronauts in near-Earth orbit, the

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lunar rover, failed in this attempt, though its orbiter remained functional. Future plans include a new launch vehicle for astronauts, a solar probe to study coronal mass ejections, an orbiter of Venus to study the planet’s atmosphere, a new Mars mission (Mangalyaan 2), and an international agreement with Japan’s space agency

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, 54, 125 China, 7, 19, 32, 37, 52, 53, 56, 65–67, 78, 99, 123–125, 129 Clark, Alvan, 75 Clementine, 51, 55 CMEs. See coronal mass ejections colonies, 88; on Mars, 39, 75, 86, 88–92, 104; on moon, 39, 50, 55, 57, 72, 75, 88, 97; in space, 39, 90, 91

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, 104–113 Columbia, 31, 121 Comet Cheryumov-Gerasimov, 126 Commercial Lunar Payload Services, 67 Concorde, 14 Consensys, 101 contamination, 77, 88 coronal mass ejections, 43, 44, 84 cosmic rays, 43, 44, 84 COSPAR, 71 Crawford, Ian, 64 Cruz, Ted, 99 CSPAN, 20 Cupola observatory, 126 Curiosity rover, 18, 78

Global Catastrophic Risks

by Nick Bostrom and Milan M. Cirkovic · 2 Jul 2008

. 1 The intense solar flare of 4 November 2003. A giant sun spot region lashed out with an intense solar flare followed by a large coronal mass ejection (CME) on 4 November 2003. The flare itself is seen here at the lower right in an extreme ultraviolet image from the sun-staring SOHO

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by the sun every second. Thus, individual solar flares are not energetic enough to cause global catastrophes on planet Earth. However, solar flares and associated coronal mass ejections strongly influence our local space weather. They produce streams of highly energetic particles in the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere that can present

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udgement 102-4 Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material 438-9 copulas 173 Cordesman, A. 407 core-collapse supernovae 245, 2 5 1 coronal mass ejections (CMEs) 239, 243 cosmic hazards 14-1 5 , 238, 258-9 as cause of mass extinctions 256-7 changes in solar luminosity 238-42 solar

The Star Builders: Nuclear Fusion and the Race to Power the Planet

by Arthur Turrell · 2 Aug 2021 · 297pp · 84,447 words

of plasma on the scale of the largest planets, frequently reach out of the Sun’s surface and into space. The most dramatic examples are coronal mass ejections (the corona is the outer layer of plasma of the Sun). Like the Earth, the Sun has magnetic fields that emanate out from the poles

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the magnetic spaghetti will develop a kink that extends beyond the surface of the Sun and breaks apart, flicking an arc of plasma into space. Coronal mass ejections can throw plasma right at us at speeds of up to three thousand kilometers (approximately 1,864 miles) per second. Once it hits the Earth

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’s magnetic field, it’s guided to the poles, creating the Northern or Southern Lights. But when there are huge coronal mass ejections, the Earth’s magnetic field becomes heavily distorted and plasma rains down much closer to the equator, even as far as Cuba. Such ejections can

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Lawson’s theory and equations on possibility of creating, 108–10 nuclear fusion energy and, 47 stars carbon-nitrogen-oxygen (CNO) cycle in, 79–80 coronal mass ejections and, 81–82 death of, and nuclear fusion, 83–86 formation of, 73–77 net energy gain and conditions in, 69, 78–79, 82–86

Infinity in the Palm of Your Hand: Fifty Wonders That Reveal an Extraordinary Universe

by Marcus Chown · 22 Apr 2019 · 171pp · 51,276 words

that they can launch mega-flares—though admittedly rarely—that are quite capable of frying a planet like the earth. A more serious concern is Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), which should more accurately be called “coronal magnetic eruptions.” First recognized in the 1970s, these are missile-like ejections into space of vast amounts

Mars Rover Curiosity: An Inside Account From Curiosity's Chief Engineer

by Rob Manning and William L. Simon · 20 Oct 2014 · 237pp · 76,486 words

. I asked JPL’s space radiation expert, Martin Ratliff, to send an urgent email to the cruise mission managers with news of an impending huge “coronal mass ejection” from the sun: a huge solar flare heading toward Mars. Martin’s warning to the team was a heads-up. A genuine large solar flare

The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch

by Lewis Dartnell · 15 Apr 2014 · 398pp · 100,679 words

and ground poisoned by fallout would hamper the recovery of agriculture. Just as bad, even though it is not directly lethal, would be an enormous coronal mass ejection from the Sun. A particularly violent solar burp would slam into the magnetic field around our planet, set it ringing like a bell, and induce

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. If there is an implosion of the technological life support system of modern society but no immediate depopulation (such as would be triggered by a coronal mass ejection), most of the population survives to rapidly consume any remaining resources in fierce competition. This wastes the grace period, and society promptly descends into Mad

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, 90, 190, 240n in oral rehydration therapy, 148 sulfur dioxide, 240 sulfuric acid, 120–22, 159, 214, 238, 241 sulfuryl chloride, 121 Sun, 269, 270 coronal mass ejection from, 22, 24 equinoxes and, 259 proving Earth’s orbit around, 260n solstices and, 255–56 sundial, 256–57, 259–60, 270–71 superglue, 42