What scares you the most?

submitted by hennaojichan from files.catbox.moe

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[–][deleted] 6 insightful - 3 fun6 insightful - 2 fun7 insightful - 3 fun -  (6 children)

I'll add my own personal greatest fear:

What scares me the most is the prospect that the Sun doesn't throw us back into the stone age within the next 15 years and the world keeps on going in the trajectory it has recently adopted.

[–]hennaojichan[S] 2 insightful - 2 fun2 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 2 fun -  (5 children)

Right now we're having a solar event that could cause some outages but I think you know. And there is the 12,800 year cycle that last time caused a horrific flood. We seem to be on the leading edge of it even now.

[–][deleted] 3 insightful - 3 fun3 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 3 fun -  (4 children)

Yes. The normal timeline seems to be a Carrington level event in one solar cycle, and the next one, 11 years later, give or take a few, you get the micro-nova. I'm hoping the Carrington level event is this cycle, and the Sun explodes in 15 to 16 years maximum.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

How powerful would the Carrington event be in a global sense if it happened today, or even something that beat the record of that event? And how do we even know how powerful that event was when scientific measuring wasn't as advanced back in the 19th century?

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

It's relatively easy to measure today, looking at the mineral layer just under the layer of ashes from a volcano from just after said event.

If it happened TODAY it might not send us all the way to the stone age, but the worst Carrington style events happen about a decade before the micro-nova, when the Earth's magnetic field is at its weakest. But give it 4-5 years of additional decline, and we'll be close.

Any X 7 flare might do it today, although I don't know the exact classification of the December 16, 1988 flare which was the most disruptive one that I can personally remember, with our grid in Québec going down for over 3 weeks.

Bottom line, there is quite a bit of data.

[–][deleted] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I rephrase: How do we know how powerful it truly was on electronics if there were very little electronics back then?

[–][deleted] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Well, it is known that solar flares can range up to a certain energy level, and the geomagnetic disruption levels are easily calculated per flare energy level. The stronger flares will feel like the EMP from a very strong nuclear weapon... EVERYWHERE.

And once again, it is known that a strong EMP kills everything electrical and of course electronic. It is inescapable and true.