Cannibal CME, Solar Flares and Sunspots

Live Science

After witnessing the array of Northern Lights as far south as Colorado, we discuss how Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) are formed and what impact they have on Earth.

Transcript

00:00there are some beautiful auroras happening in the northwest of america right now yeah so like noah

00:06scientists have given this a really really simple explanation and it's it's called uh like a cannibal

00:12coronal mass ejection that's the con that's the thing that's causing all of these auroras going on

00:18right now cannibal corona mass ejection yeah that sounds a little terrifying i mean it's it's kind

00:24of funny right because like just soon as we get over one kind of corona we get hit by another but

00:28like this this one like a cannibal coronal mass ejection like if i break that down for you

00:34it's caused by sunspots so there's a sunspot on the sun called like ar 2975 right now okay um and what

00:41it's been doing over the last say like few days is producing up to 17 solar eruptions two of which

00:49um were i've headed straight towards us now one of them was traveling faster than the other it was the

00:55one just like that came just after the first one that was emitted now when those when that second

01:03sun like the coronal mass ejection caught up with the first it cannibalized it it swept it all up into

01:10this one big wave of part of like these these charged particles and then they all swept towards the earth

01:16and then when they hit it they caused a geomagnetic storm what where they come from in how sunspots are

01:23created is magnetic fields are created on the sun like the sun is just a giant ball of plasma so

01:29like there's loads of charged particles eddying and moving around on like inside the sun across the sun

01:35surface now when you have charged particles moving you're going to induce some magnetism there but

01:40because magnetic field lines can't cross and you've got all these moving particles like this giant traffic

01:45jam of particles moving everywhere you'll inevitably get these field lines bunched up next to each other

01:50they'll form into these tight knots that can't escape anywhere else and eventually they will have

01:56to snap and release energy now they release energy either in the form of a solar flare like a bright

02:01flare of radiation or they'll release energy in the form of like chucking out some of that plasma from

02:07the sun what's the difference between solar flares and ronal mass ejections so solar flares is just

02:13the bright flash that you'll see of radiation from that from that field line snapping that energy release

02:19a coronal mass ejection is some of the sun's like plasma soup actually being like burped out of the

02:25sun i love that phrase plasma soup mm-hmm yeah tasty nice uh i mean pretty but i mean a little terrifying

02:36right i mean does it affect earth um so it does but not in like a so not in an always really terrible

02:46way most of the time the earth has a pretty strong magnetic field which is really really good news for

02:52us because it protects us from all of these like highly energized particles that the sun has just

02:58spewed out at us um in this case at like speeds of like 2 million miles per hour which is just i guess

03:0433 times less than the speed of light pretty quick um so what the earth's magnetic field will do is it will

03:12absorb all of these particles the energy will go into stretching out the magnetic field in space

03:18so it's like it's kind of bunched out towards the it gives it a long tail um and then

03:25most of those particles will gather kind of towards the poles where they will like go downwards and then

03:32energize some of the molecules in the atmosphere and when these when these um molecules in the atmosphere

03:39then give out light um to in order to kind of go down to a lower energy level that's what why we see

03:45the aurora now because there's many of these like particles coming in you're getting auroras much lower

03:52down um along the northern hemisphere than you would normally expect to see that's that's that's that's a

03:59pretty that's a nice effect there um and i know that uh people had already taken video from it uh this is

04:07from manitoba in canada beautiful just absolutely beautiful yeah yeah yeah and like i think also

04:16you could see the aurora in the us certainly like as far south as pennsylvania iowa and oregon over the

04:21last two days as well oh right on uh spaceweather.com that you guys were sharing information from uh they

04:29showed some pictures purple i mean purple what a what an aura that earth is giving off of this aurora

04:37and you know i uh when you mentioned poles i'm like that's why they're always up there

04:43towards yeah we got to get closer to some poles ben yeah yeah but so okay so that's the good what uh

04:51how about damage okay yes so damage um so they can cause damage so one of the most recent kind of power

05:02outages that was caused by a storm of this type was um in the was the 1989 quebec power cut which was

05:09caused by a geomagnetic storm now most of the time especially when it comes to people who provide like

05:15power lines and stuff a lot of them have shielded like their their their like power cables and things

05:20like that with a kind of faraday cage basically which diverts the energy or they also have like other

05:27techniques that allow them to kind of siphon off excess energy that might be given to power lines

05:31by storms like this okay but like that hasn't always been the case like especially back in 1859

05:38there was a really big event called the great carrington event um which was the largest sort

05:43of solar storm in modern human history i'm sure there have been solar storms just as large throughout

05:49our past but like before that point we weren't really documenting it and we didn't have

05:54many electronics around so we didn't really care um but in this case the great carrington event fried

06:01most of the telegram systems in the us and in europe that had been developed at the time and it also

06:07led to auroras that could be seen around like as far south as the as the caribbean um and like there

06:14were people waking up at night thinking that it like thinking that it was daytime in the caribbean

06:20because of these enormous auroras from this event i mean we we're freaked out about it now when we see

06:25things like that we know more but i can't even imagine you know over 100 years ago yeah yeah exactly

06:32in terms of um more modern sort of phenomena that have caused more modern damage other than the

06:37quebec event um recently actually there was another geomagnetic storm that caused the downing of um

06:4440 like 40 of spacex's starlink satellites that was one thing that happened um and on top of that as

06:51well there's a potential risk um that internet like the internet in general especially in the united states

06:59could be cut out by a geomagnetic storm because a lot of these cables run underwater through like like

07:06latitudes that would be affected by it and like you would have a geomagnetic storm they're not shielded

07:13so they would basically be probably quite severely affected by this but as is the case with a lot of

07:18things and how they're done with like legislation it's like earthquakes it doesn't often get

07:23legislated for until the worst has already happened yeah that's a shame i mean i really like the internet

07:28i really i like to keep it around this is how we get to communicate right exactly um but but you're

07:37saying that we have protections now so most i think most like power companies have already built in

07:44protections into their grids for these kind of things it's just yeah you're not going to be

07:48getting any like um i guess coronal mass ejection memes in the middle of a coronal mass ejection you

07:53have to wait a few weeks for them to fix this to power the underwater cables yeah and and luckily earth

07:59you know we have this nice electromagnetic shield right already built in otherwise we'd be you know goners you

08:04you know yeah it would fry us and it would also fry our atmosphere like a big reason why mars doesn't

08:09have much of an atmosphere for instance it doesn't really have very active um magnetic fields so all

08:15of those all of the atmosphere when when it gets hit by this these wave of like hydrogen like particles

08:21protons um like the atmosphere gets stripped away quite quickly poor mars poor mars yeah but that's why

08:28we're here right we're not we're not i mean we are on mars but you know yeah yeah not yet not yet

08:34well so is there a way to know when things like this will happen i know we watch the sun we have

08:41video of the sun it seems more like after the fact yeah so you get a bit of advanced warning like for

08:49instance the great carrington event is named after richard carrington who spotted like intense solar

08:54flares in the sky like a few like a few hours like maybe about 15 hours before the actual like event

09:01hit but the sun is quite a complex object like there's loads going on in those magnetic fields

09:07it's still really really hard for scientists to predict what's going on there yeah if only if only

09:13well until until the next major astronomical event thanks so much ben thank you

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