The Great & Horrible Solar Flare of 1859 (& the chances of another)

[greensteam]

I love the coincidence that the asteroid near miss is happening on Halley's birthday.

[Captain Lyerly]

Indeed.  Three Cheers for old Bill... D'Oh - you meant Edmond!!!

 

As far as parties go, there have been some bad examples as well as the good - the hurricane parties from Camille to Katrina stand out.  In Camille, there is at least a story of a hurricane party in the Richelieu Apartments in Pass Christian, with numerous deaths as a result.  Gathering together in a place that is safer, on the other hand, could be a Good Thing.

The latest Great Disaster to top the radar horizon is something called the Cascadia Subduction Zone - well, the potential mega-quake and concomitant tsunami that could result from it.  Massive forces have been building since 1700, evidently, and the current potential is a movement four or five feet down - and about 56 feet west.  Most buildings in the Pacific Northwest are not built for this, of course; and the tsunami that followed - well, the 1700 event sent a huge tsunami to Japan.  Think what it could do to Alaska and the northern California coast.

Glad I don't live in Portland or Seattle.



Cheers

Chas.

[Captain]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1349383/Betelgeuse-second-sun-Earth-supernova-turns-night-day.html

Now we might even have to worry about "solar flares" from other stars???

Story - thank you for that link.

[D.Oakes]

So wait...judging by the time it would take light to travel that distance...couldn't it already have happened?   

[Captain Lyerly]

Yes - actually, if we are to witness such in our lifetimes, it would have to have "already" occurred... leaving aside considerations of temporal continuity.

It would have had to have happened approximately 7500 years ago.  And the article buries "... or any time in the next million years" well down the page.

Of course there are other stars out there, some closer....



Cheers!

Chas.

[Xenos]

Of course there are other stars out there, some closer....

Yeah, but I don't think we have to worry about Alpha Centuri going 'SPLODE in the near future (near being next Billion or so years).

Me personally, I'm waiting for the CME to knock out our power, so I can get ta me some killin'.

[Captain]

So wait...judging by the time it would take light to travel that distance...couldn't it already have happened?   

Yes, and we could already be dead from a supernova gamma ray burst within our own galaxy.  Since this "death beam" travels at the speed of light we would not know about it until we wake up dead.   A GRB could hit Earth with anything from a solar flare to instant total absolute death depending on direction and distance. 

It is not too healthy to lose sleep over all of the ways to die but it can be a a good mental exercise.  The fact that the human race is becoming aware of these possibilities is somewhat reassuring and hopefully will motivate us to take reasonable precautions.  The best defense against extermination is more colonization such as arctic, antarctic, under water, and eventually other worlds. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamma-ray_burst

"All the bursts astronomers have recorded so far have come from distant galaxies and have been harmless to Earth, but if one occurred within our galaxy and were aimed straight at us, the effects could be devastating. Currently orbiting satellites detect an average of about one gamma-ray burst per day.

Measuring the exact rate is difficult, but for a galaxy of approximately the same size as the Milky Way, the expected rate (for long GRBs) is about one burst every 100,000 to 1,000,000 years. Only a small percentage of these would be beamed towards Earth. Estimates of rates of short GRBs are even more uncertain because of the unknown degree of collimation, but are probably comparable.

Gamma-ray bursts are thought to emerge mainly from the poles of a collapsing star. This creates two, oppositely shining beams of radiation shaped like narrow cones. Planets not lying in these cones would be comparatively safe; the chief worry is for those that do."

[Atterton]

The astronomer Phil Plait has written a book called Death From Above. It´s all about the different ways we can be killed by meteorites, gamma ray bursts and solar flares.
I just read that the sunspot currently facing Earth, has a diameter bigger than Jupiter. Oh happy days.

[D.Oakes]

The astronomer Phil Plait has written a book called Death From Above. It´s all about the different ways we can be killed by meteorites, gamma ray bursts and solar flares.
I just read that the sunspot currently facing Earth, has a diameter bigger than Jupiter. Oh happy days.

...I feel fine...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY

[MWBailey]

So, the sunspot region is facing the earth --but nobody's died from it yet,

Also, we're all still typing into this forum --so the 'net ain't history yet, either.

Now, think about this as well: because it's moving with the rotation of the sun, the sunspot region is also beginning to turn away from the earth...

As for underwater cities, and other 'Humanity's Ark' schemes, personally I keep thinking about human nature and the tendency of assumedly 'smart' officials to abstain from intelligent analysis of the situation.

(Tongue-in-cheek Alert):
I can just see everybody getting crammed into the cozy EOW countermeasure, touted as the ultimate in species-saving technology, only to find out that the secretaries of Foodstuffs and Life Support got their heads together, and decided to stock up on beef jerky ("it's vacuum-packaged and lasts forever!" they said) and classic coke, and replaced the planned lifesupport supercomplex with a scuba unit cobbled together with a bargain-priced frigidaire window A/C unit from Home Depot that runs on a jury-rigged Squirrel (yes, with a live squirrel; they plan to feed it jerky scraps) cage. They've followed up this massively thrifty enterprise by using the savings to buy even more jerky and carbonated beverages -- and the head Food Processing Technician, horrified by the cuisinic travesty of beef jerky and coca cola, has decided to serve fried squirrel for dinner...

[Captain Lyerly]

http://news.yahoo.com/strongest-solar-storm-since-2005-hitting-earth-163628746.html

We are currently in the middle of the "strongest storm since 2005" - but expect it to be a non-event.  Unless your flight is going over the North Polar regions and you really want to get that call through.  Or similar.  The associated CME is expected to be "only moderate, with a chance for becoming strong", according to the boffins.

But I find it fascinating that the big yellow thing up there is so absolutely unpredictable.  It seemed we were heading into something like a Maunder Minimum, and now we are likely to have an over-active sun for a while.  Hmmmm...


Cheers!

Chas.

[Xenos]

http://news.yahoo.com/strongest-solar-storm-since-2005-hitting-earth-163628746.html

We are currently in the middle of the "strongest storm since 2005" - but expect it to be a non-event.  Unless your flight is going over the North Polar regions and you really want to get that call through.  Or similar.  The associated CME is expected to be "only moderate, with a chance for becoming strong", according to the boffins.

But I find it fascinating that the big yellow thing up there is so absolutely unpredictable.  It seemed we were heading into something like a Maunder Minimum, and now we are likely to have an over-active sun for a while.  Hmmmm...


Cheers!

Chas.

For some reason, the first thing that popped in my head when I read that was "Eh, tide comes in, tide goes out." 

The SECOND THING that popped in my head was "YAY FOR CME!!!  ONE STEP CLOSER TO MY PREDICTION FOR THE END OF CIVILIZATION AS WE KNOW IT!!!"

Sadly, the Northern Lights aren't going to be that far south this go round...  New England, at best.

Only tangentially related:  I started working on a post-apocalyptic screenplay yesterday.  Nuclear War, but also deals with the effects of EMP from an above atmosphere detonation.  Don't go into it MUCH, but it's there.  I mean, it has the initial event, and then it's BOOM!!!  75 years later, or something like that...  I dunno, been playing FAR too much Fallout recently, I suppose.

I want bacon.  And pancakes.

And scrambled eggs!

Ok, I'm going away now.  Need to calm down.  Hyper.

[Siliconous Skumins]

Yeah it was quite a decent light show we had here (northern part of UK), unfortunately I didn't get to see much of anything due to all the light pollution where I live, but a few miles away by the coast was dark enough for decent photos and viewings.

I believe the leading edge of the newest eruption will hit earth around 2PM GMT this afternoon. Should be good for another nights viewing of the northern lights....if the bloody clouds would clear up! *sigh* 

SS

[von Corax]

Bleh — solid overcast here in Southwestern Ontario. Same as the last six or seven lighshows...

[Siliconous Skumins]

Overcast and slightly misty here. 

I DID notice the CME hit at approx 14:50pm GMT this afternoon, there was a large transient in the mains power supply. Nothing too dramatic, but enough to cause a CFL light to slightly flicker, and a little distortion on my CCTV cameras (computer based, not PVR). I didn't have much in the way of power monitoring (I wasn't actually expecting to see any effects), but what I did have showed a few brief spikes in voltage with a few sags following close behind each spike. The power line monitor doesn't have much ability, it was really only meant to be for my upcoming solar power project (300W  amorphous / polycrystalline hybrid system planned, have 168W amorphous ready to be installed...), so it's more similar to what a decent computer UPS can report. Oh well, it was more than I expected to see! 

SS

[Prof Marvel]

Friends in Denver Colorado report loverly Aurora last night ...

yhs
prof marvel

[Uncle Arthur]

Unfortunately all I saw here were clouds spitting snow.

[Xenos]

Too far south for it to have mattered to me.  'Salright, 'salright.  I'll catch it next go round.

On that note, since this topic is tangentially related to TEOTWAWKI, and I've been playing a WHOLE lot of Fallout lately, who here thinks that Bottle Caps as currency is a good idea?  I've got a few reasons to agree with it-and a few "ta not to," but I'll get into that as it goes along.

Feel free to PM me to discuss it further, if this is too far off topic...  (Hope not-I'd like to see some good discussion on it!)

[TVC15]

I don't know about Xenox, but I've been experiencing auroras, or is it aurorai, since the mid 60's.

[Atterton]

Bottle caps as currency? I think that would be a bad idea, didn't you read the story about Donald Duck in Shangri-La?

[Xenos]

Bottle caps as currency? I think that would be a bad idea, didn't you read the story about Donald Duck in Shangri-La?

I did not, actually.  What I DO know is, ASSUMEDLY, we would lack the tech to manufacture them, ergo, there'd be a limited supply of 'em to go round. 

At least, that's the Fallout logic...

[Atterton]

Where I'm from bottle caps seem to be just thin metal discs pressed into shape. They should be easy to make.

[Sir Nikolas Vendigroth]

Where I'm from bottle caps seem to be just thin metal discs pressed into shape. They should be easy to make.

And there's masses of them. The idea of bottle caps as a currency is fundamentally flawed, since if you've got the dies to make them and a sheet of tin plate, you can potentially become very, very rich with very little effort. But what if the next man's got the dies as well, and the next man? Suddenly, everyone's got a vast stack of worthless bottle caps which aren't actually worth anything.

Douglas Adams wrote of alien space ships landing on Earth in the past, and usurping the early hominids of the time to become the dominant species. These aliens adopted the leaf as their currency. Unfortunately, they discovered the planet was covered in forests and rampant inflation took place, to the extent that a single ship's peanut cost 3 forests' worth of leaves.

[19th Century Space Pilot]

That's why you have to pass laws forbidding people from making bottle caps without the Bossmans permission...

I think Copper, Silver, and Gold coinage is best, with full reserve banking. Yeah, I know there are flaws to growing an economy rapidly if you're using that, but post TEOTWAKI it wouldn't matter. I'd prefer Copper and Silver though, for my Mecha's of Death inventions.

[Xenos]

Re: Bottle Caps

In the Core Region, the relative scarcity of bottle caps made them a perfect currency for Hub merchants to adopt in the 22nd century, leading to the nickname "Hubbucks". Backed by the value of water, the Hub merchants supported bottle caps because the technology to manufacture them and paint their surfaces had been mostly lost in the Great War, which limited any counterfeiting efforts. Secondly, there are a limited number of bottle caps, which preserve their value against inflation to some degree. For similar reasons the East Coast merchants also recognize bottle caps as a currency, although who backs them and guarantees their value is unknown.
While becoming the standard currency for Hub merchants in the 22nd century, by the mid-23rd century bottle caps were replaced by New California Republic (NCR) dollars, which were backed by gold. Caps would once again became a regularly-used currency after the destruction of NCR's gold reserves by the Brotherhood of Steel destabilized the value of the dollar.

By the late-23rd century, the NCR's tenuous grip on the Core Region, the presence of Caesar's Legion (who have their own currency), and the low value of the now water-backed NCR dollar caused bottle caps to re-emerge as the standard currency of the Mojave Wasteland in 2281. Nevertheless, NCR and Legion currency are both considered legal tender by the various caravan companies and on the New Vegas Strip. Mojave merchants also accept nonstandard variants, such as Sunset Sarsaparilla bottle caps.

However, based on the relative prices of items on the East Coast and West Coast, the bottle cap currency is used in larger amounts in the former.

From the Fallout Wiki.  There's where the idea came from.  Aye, any sap with a die could make a bottle cap, but I do believe that the painting thereof would be a bit hard, unless you're just a killer artist.  And even at that, one could tell screenprinting from hand painted. 

So.  My take is, it COULD work, in theory.

Would it be flawless?  Nope.  Then again, paper money is far from un-counterfeitable! 

Gold and sliver coinage are the best options by far-since their value would be decided by weight, not what the faces of them looked like.

I do believe that's why so many people these days are buying/collecting old US coins (pre 1965), since apparently they have a silver content of greater than 90%.