The Sun's Majesty: Unlocking its Secrets through Safe Solar Viewing Glasses

As we gaze up at the sky, it's awe-inspiring to think that we can see massive sunspots, some times larger than our own planet Earth, from the comfort of our own homes. With safe solar viewing glasses, you can don a pair and step outside to witness these celestial wonders firsthand. This phenomenon is made possible by the Sun's magnetic field, which creates cooler spots on its surface that we can observe with our naked eyes. These sunspots are actually dark areas, but they're still scorching hot, making them all the more fascinating.

The Sun's Magnetic Field: A Source of Unpredictable Weather

Just like our own weather patterns, the Sun's magnetic field gives rise to different types of storms and events. We can categorize these into three main types: flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), and radiation. Flares are a type of light radiation that occurs when the Sun's magnetic field becomes unstable, releasing a massive amount of energy in the form of X-rays and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. CMEs, on the other hand, occur when a prominence or filament erupts, causing a huge release of plasma into space. This plasma can interact with the Earth's magnetic field, creating spectacular displays of aurorae.

The Relationship Between Flares, CMEs, and Radiation

While flares and CMEs are distinct events, they're often linked together in complex ways. A larger flare is more likely to be accompanied by a stronger CME, which can lead to a radiation storm. This relationship becomes even clearer when considering the different time scales involved. Flares, which emit light radiation, take around 8 minutes to reach us, while CMEs, which are a particle event, can take anywhere from 17 hours to several days to arrive on our planet. In contrast, radiation storms can occur much closer to the Sun's surface, with particles traveling at relativistic speeds that can take as little as 15-20 minutes to reach Earth.

The Carrington Event: A Cautionary Tale of Solar Activity

One notable example of the impact of solar activity is the Carrington Event, which occurred in 1859. Scientists estimate that this massive CME arrived on Earth just 17 hours after its initial release from the Sun's surface. The resulting radiation storm caused widespread damage to telegraph systems and even started fires. This event highlights the importance of monitoring solar activity and taking precautions when it becomes too intense.

The Power Grid: A Vulnerability to Solar Activity

As we gaze up at the sky, it's easy to forget that our technological infrastructure is vulnerable to the Sun's influence. The power grid, which provides electricity to millions of homes and businesses, can be affected by solar activity in several ways. Radiation storms can damage electronic equipment, while CMEs can disrupt communication systems and cause power outages. It's essential to monitor solar activity closely to mitigate these risks and ensure a stable supply of energy.

The Future of Solar Research: Unveiling the Sun's Secrets

As we continue to explore the Sun's mysteries, new discoveries are continually shedding light on its behavior. By studying sunspots, flares, CMEs, and radiation storms, scientists can gain a deeper understanding of the Sun's internal dynamics and develop more accurate models for predicting solar activity. This knowledge will be crucial in mitigating the impacts of solar events on our technological infrastructure and ensuring that future space exploration is carried out safely and efficiently.

The Importance of Safe Solar Viewing Glasses

As we continue to explore the wonders of the Sun, it's essential to prioritize our safety above all else. Safe solar viewing glasses provide a simple yet effective way to observe the Sun's surface without putting your eyes at risk. These specialized glasses can allow you to witness sunspots and other celestial phenomena up close, while protecting your vision from the intense radiation emitted by the Sun. Whether you're an amateur astronomer or simply a curious observer, safe solar viewing glasses are an indispensable tool for anyone interested in exploring the Sun's majesty.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is Twi so I just have to ask just so we have a baseline for comparison can you tell us about the caring T event because that sounds like that was a pretty exciting couple of days it was 1859 I think yes 1859 so it was the very end of August 1 of September um the gentleman named Richard Carrington is a British astronomer was observing the sun with a telescope he did have somewhat protective uh eyewear he didn't have the same kind of protection we have today but he was looking at the sun invisible light and he saw the Sunspot get blurry all of a sudden and what that meant was there was act there was a flare there was an intense increase in light one of the things we know today is that when you see large changes in the visible light which is what he saw that's actually indicative of a very large event because it doesn't happen very often but what we also saw is not too long after that uh he and other scientists around the world noticed all kinds of things happening Aurora they noticed changes in the Earth's magnetic field um some of the the magnetometers that measur that were off the scale also that we didn't have the power grid system but we had the telegraph system and telegraphs were running without being connected to their power source they were running off of the electricity created by these solar storms and what we know today is that this was a perfect storm there was a huge eruption of material a Big Blob of solar stuff we call it a coronal mass ejection that cleared the way in the solar system and then another big one came after that and that impacted the Earth creating a an incredibly powerful geomagnetic storm a m massive disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field it sort of rung it like a big Bell that created Aurora that was so powerful it was seen very far south uh actually much like the event we saw a couple of weeks ago um but there are uh stories that it was so bright in the middle of the night that people woke up thinking it was it was Dawn um there were some uh Telegraph operators who were electrocuted I don't believe any of them died but um there was a fire created because they had paper tape that um that was used in the telegraph office and the paper tape caught on fire and burned down some of the uh the telegraph offices so it was just a a really huge storm we don't know D exactly how big it was because of course we didn't have spacecraft measuring but we can do a lot of things using paleo information you know data from Ice cores and things of that nature and even looking at how far south the Aurora was and how strong the magnetic field was changing and we do believe that it is the strongest storm for at least several centuries um it may have uh it certainly had a very large coronal mass injections it had a very large solar flare which is this big blast of just light um and both the solar flare and the chronal mass injection create these massive shock waves you know like a like a sonic boom they're sort of like a snow plow going through the solar system and they accelerate particles uh ions electrons protons they accelerate them to near the speed of light creating this shower of high energy radiation um which is exactly what we we are concerned about for example with astronauts um and so it's considered kind of the standard candle for you know a superstorm well I wanted to ask a little bit about the different things to look for in in these these events well first of all you mentioned that the the solar cycle is 11 years long and they're they have names right we are in solar cycle it's 25 correct yeah so and is that so what is that 25 time 11 I don't know the math rod do you know it what huh what that's so that's that's over uh uh like a couple hundred years then that we've been yeah we've been we've actually been counting sunspots uh for seever for about 400 years uh we have data further back than solo cycle number one but as soon as we felt the data was uh robust enough then we started actually numbering these Cycles you know one two and so on and and do you know why it's 11 years I mean the seasons on Earth are a year long right they CH well it's that's actually a really big question that we don't know the answer to we know that there is a well we believe based on uh our understanding of for example the Earth's magnetic field um as well as other stars that there's a process called a Dynamo so when you have uh a conducting fluid or a plasma the sun is actually a plasma which is when you um you you heat up a gas so much that the atoms break apart and into electrons and then the nucleus of the atom so that gives them the electrical property so if you have a conductor and it's liquid or a plasma when it's rotating it has what's called differential rotation and is actually something you see on Jupiter and Saturn the equator rotates faster than as you move towards the poles it rotates slower and there's magnetic fields inside the star inside the Sun and also inside the the liquid core of the earth and because these are conductors moving they drag the magnetic field and so they're dragging it uh much more and faster near the equator than they are at the poles and so when the solar cycle is at the minimum the magnetic field is very relatively uniform going from north to south and then over the 11 years it starts twisting it up and that eventually causes the magnetic fields to pop out the surface they float to the surface and gives us sunspots but why is it 11 years we don't know we really don't know we have computer models we have some Physics that that allows us to recreate a Dynamo but we can't make it even given the you know the various properties we know of the sun we can't actually make it exactly 11 years or and in fact it's actually sometimes a little bit longer like 11 and a half and sometimes a little bit shorter so that's you know of the many ones that's like one of The $64,000 questions do you ever like just go outside and Shout at the sun ask why why why 11 years why well I do right there t you're you're projecting again you know one of the things thinking saying about you know speaking of going out and looking at the sun obviously we've always been told we shouldn't look at it uh and we do know what happens if you do now uh talking about it earlier but if you use your your eclipse glasses or we call those so you know safe solar viewing glasses you can wear those go outside you know when the sun is out and it's nice and clear and you can look at the Sun and during High activity like around now you will see sunspots they get so big many times the size of Earth that we can see them with our own eyes from from our from the Earth's surface which I find just amazing that you can do that and and I I I've do I do encourage anyone if you've got glasses to go ahead and try and do that it is really fun to see uh that kind of stuff and I did want to ask that you know so we talk about sun spots and those are created by the magnetic field poking up and those are cooler spots on the surface of the Sun that's why they're dark but they're still super hot is that right yes exactly yeah and and and then you talked about flares and coronal mass ejections and and then radiation and those seem like three different kinds of storms from the Sun I mean is that the the what are the different types of weather that we see from this sun absolutely there are different types of weather I mean you could maybe think of you know just like we have uh different scales of weather we have thunderstorms we have tornadoes we have hurricanes um so they're all related and for example a lot of times you can have smaller flares um that don't have an a coronal mass injection associated with it um you can have coronal mass injections that come from eruptions of what's called a prominence or filament they're the same thing if you look at a prominence is when you look at this structure it's usually pinkish red on the edge of the sun if you look at it over the disc of the sun it's it's called a filament uh we used to not know that they were the same thing but now we do know that those can erupt on their own and they don't necessarily create a flare but they can you know give it give you a c and both flares and CMEs separately can cause the particle storm so they're all related to each other they're all a form of the release of magnetic energy so that you know in that sense they all kind of come from a very similar origin um what we do find is when the flares are larger as they get larger that correlation between flares and CMEs becomes stronger and stronger that is if there's a big flare there's a good chance not always but there's a really good chance it's going to be a big CME and that both of those mean there's a possibly good chance that we might see you know one of these particle storms so you mentioned some of the the risks associated with this and I'm I'm interested in talking more about the power grid and so forth but one of the things I remember during the Apollo program was you know they didn't know nearly as much about the Sun as you do now but they tried very hard to make make sure these guys didn't launch during a time when there was likely to be some kind of uh big radiation Spike from the Sun and I've always been a little I think you sort of touched on it but I've always been a little confused about uh the transit times of Chrono Mass injections versus flares so one's effectively light radiation em and the other one is a particle event and it takes like 9 minutes or so uh yeah so we actually we have three different time scales here so uh we do have the flare as you mentioned which is light and we we that takes eight minutes eight minutes um this the coronal mass injection takes is much slower it's going at a measly couple million miles an hour which sounds really fast but compared to light it's not yeah and so that's going to take anywhere from 17 16 17 hours up to several days and there is a relationship between the faster more powerful CMEs are the ones that get here early for example we mentioned the Carrington event the estimates are that that CME got here in about 17 hours so so that's a fast one um and then the particles are in between they they can be very close to they can be very relativistic meaning they're close to the speed of light or they can also be you know slower ones the the ones that are closer to the speed of light typically take something like 15 minutes maybe 20 minutes um to get here but those particle storms can also last for a long time we've actually had one a couple days ago that lasted for a long time and you can see the effects of that at the at the polls of the Earth on Communications hey if you enjoyed this clip be sure to check out this week in space you can find us on your favorite podcast app or see the link in the description below see you there Ithis is Twi so I just have to ask just so we have a baseline for comparison can you tell us about the caring T event because that sounds like that was a pretty exciting couple of days it was 1859 I think yes 1859 so it was the very end of August 1 of September um the gentleman named Richard Carrington is a British astronomer was observing the sun with a telescope he did have somewhat protective uh eyewear he didn't have the same kind of protection we have today but he was looking at the sun invisible light and he saw the Sunspot get blurry all of a sudden and what that meant was there was act there was a flare there was an intense increase in light one of the things we know today is that when you see large changes in the visible light which is what he saw that's actually indicative of a very large event because it doesn't happen very often but what we also saw is not too long after that uh he and other scientists around the world noticed all kinds of things happening Aurora they noticed changes in the Earth's magnetic field um some of the the magnetometers that measur that were off the scale also that we didn't have the power grid system but we had the telegraph system and telegraphs were running without being connected to their power source they were running off of the electricity created by these solar storms and what we know today is that this was a perfect storm there was a huge eruption of material a Big Blob of solar stuff we call it a coronal mass ejection that cleared the way in the solar system and then another big one came after that and that impacted the Earth creating a an incredibly powerful geomagnetic storm a m massive disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field it sort of rung it like a big Bell that created Aurora that was so powerful it was seen very far south uh actually much like the event we saw a couple of weeks ago um but there are uh stories that it was so bright in the middle of the night that people woke up thinking it was it was Dawn um there were some uh Telegraph operators who were electrocuted I don't believe any of them died but um there was a fire created because they had paper tape that um that was used in the telegraph office and the paper tape caught on fire and burned down some of the uh the telegraph offices so it was just a a really huge storm we don't know D exactly how big it was because of course we didn't have spacecraft measuring but we can do a lot of things using paleo information you know data from Ice cores and things of that nature and even looking at how far south the Aurora was and how strong the magnetic field was changing and we do believe that it is the strongest storm for at least several centuries um it may have uh it certainly had a very large coronal mass injections it had a very large solar flare which is this big blast of just light um and both the solar flare and the chronal mass injection create these massive shock waves you know like a like a sonic boom they're sort of like a snow plow going through the solar system and they accelerate particles uh ions electrons protons they accelerate them to near the speed of light creating this shower of high energy radiation um which is exactly what we we are concerned about for example with astronauts um and so it's considered kind of the standard candle for you know a superstorm well I wanted to ask a little bit about the different things to look for in in these these events well first of all you mentioned that the the solar cycle is 11 years long and they're they have names right we are in solar cycle it's 25 correct yeah so and is that so what is that 25 time 11 I don't know the math rod do you know it what huh what that's so that's that's over uh uh like a couple hundred years then that we've been yeah we've been we've actually been counting sunspots uh for seever for about 400 years uh we have data further back than solo cycle number one but as soon as we felt the data was uh robust enough then we started actually numbering these Cycles you know one two and so on and and do you know why it's 11 years I mean the seasons on Earth are a year long right they CH well it's that's actually a really big question that we don't know the answer to we know that there is a well we believe based on uh our understanding of for example the Earth's magnetic field um as well as other stars that there's a process called a Dynamo so when you have uh a conducting fluid or a plasma the sun is actually a plasma which is when you um you you heat up a gas so much that the atoms break apart and into electrons and then the nucleus of the atom so that gives them the electrical property so if you have a conductor and it's liquid or a plasma when it's rotating it has what's called differential rotation and is actually something you see on Jupiter and Saturn the equator rotates faster than as you move towards the poles it rotates slower and there's magnetic fields inside the star inside the Sun and also inside the the liquid core of the earth and because these are conductors moving they drag the magnetic field and so they're dragging it uh much more and faster near the equator than they are at the poles and so when the solar cycle is at the minimum the magnetic field is very relatively uniform going from north to south and then over the 11 years it starts twisting it up and that eventually causes the magnetic fields to pop out the surface they float to the surface and gives us sunspots but why is it 11 years we don't know we really don't know we have computer models we have some Physics that that allows us to recreate a Dynamo but we can't make it even given the you know the various properties we know of the sun we can't actually make it exactly 11 years or and in fact it's actually sometimes a little bit longer like 11 and a half and sometimes a little bit shorter so that's you know of the many ones that's like one of The $64,000 questions do you ever like just go outside and Shout at the sun ask why why why 11 years why well I do right there t you're you're projecting again you know one of the things thinking saying about you know speaking of going out and looking at the sun obviously we've always been told we shouldn't look at it uh and we do know what happens if you do now uh talking about it earlier but if you use your your eclipse glasses or we call those so you know safe solar viewing glasses you can wear those go outside you know when the sun is out and it's nice and clear and you can look at the Sun and during High activity like around now you will see sunspots they get so big many times the size of Earth that we can see them with our own eyes from from our from the Earth's surface which I find just amazing that you can do that and and I I I've do I do encourage anyone if you've got glasses to go ahead and try and do that it is really fun to see uh that kind of stuff and I did want to ask that you know so we talk about sun spots and those are created by the magnetic field poking up and those are cooler spots on the surface of the Sun that's why they're dark but they're still super hot is that right yes exactly yeah and and and then you talked about flares and coronal mass ejections and and then radiation and those seem like three different kinds of storms from the Sun I mean is that the the what are the different types of weather that we see from this sun absolutely there are different types of weather I mean you could maybe think of you know just like we have uh different scales of weather we have thunderstorms we have tornadoes we have hurricanes um so they're all related and for example a lot of times you can have smaller flares um that don't have an a coronal mass injection associated with it um you can have coronal mass injections that come from eruptions of what's called a prominence or filament they're the same thing if you look at a prominence is when you look at this structure it's usually pinkish red on the edge of the sun if you look at it over the disc of the sun it's it's called a filament uh we used to not know that they were the same thing but now we do know that those can erupt on their own and they don't necessarily create a flare but they can you know give it give you a c and both flares and CMEs separately can cause the particle storm so they're all related to each other they're all a form of the release of magnetic energy so that you know in that sense they all kind of come from a very similar origin um what we do find is when the flares are larger as they get larger that correlation between flares and CMEs becomes stronger and stronger that is if there's a big flare there's a good chance not always but there's a really good chance it's going to be a big CME and that both of those mean there's a possibly good chance that we might see you know one of these particle storms so you mentioned some of the the risks associated with this and I'm I'm interested in talking more about the power grid and so forth but one of the things I remember during the Apollo program was you know they didn't know nearly as much about the Sun as you do now but they tried very hard to make make sure these guys didn't launch during a time when there was likely to be some kind of uh big radiation Spike from the Sun and I've always been a little I think you sort of touched on it but I've always been a little confused about uh the transit times of Chrono Mass injections versus flares so one's effectively light radiation em and the other one is a particle event and it takes like 9 minutes or so uh yeah so we actually we have three different time scales here so uh we do have the flare as you mentioned which is light and we we that takes eight minutes eight minutes um this the coronal mass injection takes is much slower it's going at a measly couple million miles an hour which sounds really fast but compared to light it's not yeah and so that's going to take anywhere from 17 16 17 hours up to several days and there is a relationship between the faster more powerful CMEs are the ones that get here early for example we mentioned the Carrington event the estimates are that that CME got here in about 17 hours so so that's a fast one um and then the particles are in between they they can be very close to they can be very relativistic meaning they're close to the speed of light or they can also be you know slower ones the the ones that are closer to the speed of light typically take something like 15 minutes maybe 20 minutes um to get here but those particle storms can also last for a long time we've actually had one a couple days ago that lasted for a long time and you can see the effects of that at the at the polls of the Earth on Communications hey if you enjoyed this clip be sure to check out this week in space you can find us on your favorite podcast app or see the link in the description below see you there I\n"