[meteorite-list] Solar flares (ot) ? or are ions meteorites?

[Sterling K. Webb]

Hi, List,

On the relative strength of solar flares, take a look at:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120315.html

In the first photo, you can see that the Vela Pulsar
is (as usual) the brightest gamma ray source in the
Galaxy. In the second photo, the March 7, 2012 flare
from our little Sun outshines it by a factor of almost
100-fold.

>From the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.


Sterling K. Webb
----------------------------------------------------------------
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "MexicoDoug" <mexicodoug at aim.com>
To: <clp at alumni.caltech.edu>; <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 14, 2012 4:21 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Solar flares (ot) ? or are ions 
meteorites?


>
> Well, if we are talking billions and billions of years, life has 
> certainly taken a few good ones on the chin during that time, and 
> robust as it seems to be, it acts as a unified being, just changing 
> form, where we species are all just incidental cogs climbing a 
> particular hill in a particular moment ...  as we see from out 
> extinction.
>
> The generalization of 'weak solar flares to do any damage' is a useful 
> tool, but in the real world out there multiplied by billions and 
> billions of years, it's easy to fall into a statistical trap ...
>
> Earth represents about one part in 300,000,000,000,000,000,000 of the 
> area at 1 AU.  What is the highest intensity solar flare cross 
> sectional area of a powerful finger?  Probably very big and 
> delocalized, but if we are talking about the Sun delivering a real, 
> narrow earth-sized punch once every ten years, in 10 billion years, no 
> catastrophic flare impact is likely - another useful tool to think 
> about to better get a handle on this.
>
> and billions and billions ... shouldn't be taken too the bit too far 
> IMO.  A once in a billion year event can certainly cripple the 
> biosphere and send it in a new direction.  Take gamma ray bursts, the 
> bigger brother of solar flares from distant, more powerful sources, 
> which as Chris implies,might be detrimental vs. our Sun's relative 
> burst flux, ... the gamma proton storms realistically could score a 
> direct hit on Earth every billion years and thus are interesting to 
> consider side-by-side or as in some case, alternative, with asteroid 
> impact extinction theories.
>
> If a gamma storm hits, everyone flying above 30,000 feet gets to 
> automatically becomes hulky, but the problem isn't confined to the 
> stratosphere.  The atmospheric overload would likely initiate a chain 
> of reactions wiping out the ozone layers and take out many species not 
> protected enough or overly sensitive in the ensuing time.  Not only 
> that, it would get ... paradoxically dark and acidic and global 
> warming would be history as the surface hit a low temperature.  It is 
> quite possible, if not probable, that at least one extinction even was 
> punctuated with a gamma storm like this, which rivaled any doomsday 
> asteroid scenario by playing with similar large scale climate and 
> radiation changes.
>
> Back to the billions of years of life vs. the solar flare.  I really 
> don't have time to go skiing with some magnetic poles to Antarctica, 
> but I sure as heck wouldn't want to be there while this 'deflection' 
> was in progress ... especially on a big-ozone hole year!
>
> Kindest wishes
> Doug
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Peterson <clp at alumni.caltech.edu>
> To: meteorite-list <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Wed, Mar 14, 2012 1:19 pm
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Solar flares (ot) ? or are ions 
> meteorites?
>
>
> Our Sun isn't active enough to produce flares large enough to
> dangerously irradiate the Earth. If it were, given hundreds of 
> millions
> of years of land-based life, we almost certainly wouldn't be here.
>
> Keep in mind that those CMEs that look so impressive in the videos
> produce a particle density at the Earth that represents a harder 
> vacuum
> than can be achieved in a lab, and what's left is effectively blocked 
> by
> our magnetic field and atmosphere.
>
> Other stars are more active, and ours may become so billions of years
> from now. But at the moment, we're safe (assuming we can recover from
> having our power grids or satellites knocked out... which are very
> possible consequences of flares that we know the Sun can produce).
>
> Chris
>
> *******************************
> Chris L Peterson
> Cloudbait Observatory
> http://www.cloudbait.com
>
> On 3/14/2012 10:58 AM, Steve Dunklee wrote:
>> What level of flare would cause death on earth from radiation and is
> it
> possible? like just the flare going in the wrong direction.
>> cheers
>> Steve
>
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