How to prepare for 20 13 solar storm

Solar storm refers to the violent eruption of the sun at the peak of sunspot activity. The high-speed particle flow formed by the release of a large number of charged particles during the explosion seriously affects the earth's space environment, destroys the ozone layer, interferes with wireless communication, and is also harmful to human health.

Scientists predict that there will be a super solar storm in 20 13 years.

brief introduction

Solar storm refers to the violent eruption of the sun at the peak of sunspot activity. The high-speed particle flow formed by the release of a large number of charged particles during the explosion seriously affects the earth's space environment, destroys the ozone layer, interferes with wireless communication, and is also harmful to human health.

The sun will produce solar storms at the peak of sunspot activity. Discovered by American Mariner 2 probe in 1962. It is a high-speed particle flow formed by increasing solar energy and releasing a large number of charged particles into the vast space. Scientists compare this phenomenon to the "sneeze" of the sun. Because the air mass in the solar wind is mainly charged plasma, it will break into space at the speed of10.5 thousand to 3 million kilometers per hour, which will have a great impact on the space environment of the earth. When the solar storm breaks out, it will affect communication, threaten satellites, destroy the ozone layer and have a certain impact on human health.

Characteristics of solar storms

Sunspot activity usually takes 1 1 year as a cycle, and the peak of this cycle appeared in 2000. More than three years after the peak, sunspots became active again, which led to a solar storm, which was somewhat abnormal to some extent. In addition to the solar storm effect, sunspots can also cause high-energy flares, which may last for a week or two and may affect radio communication on earth.

The new round of solar storm is mainly caused by the flow of gas and charged particles released by the newly formed huge sunspot group on the surface of the sun, which hits the earth at a speed of about 3.2 million kilometers per hour.

affect

1 when the solar wind passes over the earth, it will change the electromagnetic field, cause geomagnetic storms and ionospheric storms, and affect communication, especially short-wave communication.

2. Sending strong charges to the ground power grid and pipelines will affect the safety of power transmission, oil transmission and gas transmission pipeline systems.

3 It has an impact on the running satellites.

The radiation of solar wind can easily reach a person's multiple X-ray examinations. It will also cause the decline of human immunity, easily cause pathological changes, make people's emotions fluctuate easily, and even increase car accidents.

5 will increase the temperature.

Formation process

Solar storm is a high-speed particle flow formed by a large number of charged particles released into space by the sun due to the increase of energy. Because the air mass in the solar storm is mainly charged plasma, and it breaks into space at the speed of 1.5 thousand to 3 million kilometers per hour, the solar storm occurs every 1 1 year with the sunspot activity cycle. This is the periodic change of the sun itself. Scientists vividly compare the solar storm to the sun sneezing. There will be a peak year in each cycle, when there will be a big flare and a huge sunspot group on the surface of the sun. The gas and charged particles released by the sunspot group will produce geomagnetic shock waves after colliding with the earth's magnetic field, which will lead to the earth's magnetic storm. This is the formation process of solar storms.

Solar storm is the product of energy explosion caused by the change of solar magnetic field to a certain extent. Magnetic field interaction in different parts of the sun. After reaching a "limit point", if current is encountered, a new magnetic field will be generated in an instant, and a large number of charged particles in the solar atmosphere will erupt outward.

circulate

Because the air mass in the solar storm is mainly charged plasma, and it breaks into space at the speed of 1.5 thousand to 3 million kilometers per hour, the solar storm occurs every 1 1 year with the sunspot activity cycle. This is the periodic change of the sun itself.

Scientists vividly compare the solar storm to the sun sneezing. There will be a peak year in each cycle, when there will be a big flare and a huge sunspot group on the surface of the sun. The gas and charged particles released by the sunspot group will produce geomagnetic shock waves after colliding with the earth's magnetic field, which will lead to the earth's magnetic storm. This is the formation process of solar storms. Magnetic field interaction in different parts of the sun. After reaching a "limit point", if current is encountered, a new magnetic field will be generated in an instant, and a large number of charged particles in the solar atmosphere will erupt outward.

Influence on human beings

During the solar storm, plasma clouds of X-rays, extreme ultraviolet rays (electromagnetic waves with wavelength of 0. 1 ~ 140 nm), radio waves (electromagnetic waves with wavelength of 1 mm ~ 10 cm) and high-energy particles (such as protons, alpha particles, electrons, etc.). ) will be greatly enhanced, resulting in correlation.

X-rays emitted during the solar storm will increase by 1000 times than usual. The increase of x-rays will greatly increase the electron density in the ionosphere of the earth's atmosphere, seriously interfere with short-wave radio communication, and even lead to the interruption of radio communication. For example, during the 22-week peak year of solar activity in 1989, a large solar flare interrupted short-wave radio communication on the earth for more than 1 hour. The high-energy particle flow generated during the solar storm will seriously damage some detection instruments and computer systems in space flight, and will directly threaten the life safety of space flight personnel. The global positioning satellite GPS9783 has a 13 flip error in the 22 weeks of the peak year of solar activity. High-energy protons during solar storms will trigger Qualcomm-related solar cosmic rays events in near-earth space, which are called proton events. At the same time, these high-energy protons will also disturb the atmosphere above the earth's poles, leading to the interruption of short-wave communication. The drastic change of ultraviolet radiation during solar storm will directly change the temperature and density of the earth's upper atmosphere, thus changing the orbit of spacecraft such as satellites and directly threatening their operational safety.

solar flare

Solar flare is a large-scale energy release process that suddenly occurs in local areas of the solar surface. When a flare occurs, intense radiation covers the entire electromagnetic spectrum, including gamma rays, χ rays, ultraviolet rays and visible light, until the radio band. At the same time, particles such as electrons, protons and heavy ions are heated and accelerated in the solar atmosphere. A large flare can emit energy as high as 1025 joules, which is equivalent to getting a hydrogen bomb for everyone in the world. This energy is 6.5438+million times larger than that released by volcanic eruption, but less than one tenth of the total energy emitted by the sun every second.

Large solar flares will make three rounds of "attacks" on the earth's space (including the upper atmosphere, ionosphere and magnetosphere). First of all, the X-ray bursts generated by flares fly to the earth at the speed of light, which enhances the ionization of the sunny ionosphere and interferes with or even completely interrupts short-wave communication. The second attack is relativistic charged particles (mainly protons and electrons), whose speed is close to the speed of light, and they reach the earth's space about 30 minutes after the flare, causing damage to satellites through various physical effects.

The first effect is a single event. When a single proton or heavy ion hits the chip of electronic equipment in a spacecraft, the charge in the chip is too large, which locks the circuit in a state. Only when the power supply is turned off and restarted can the equipment return to normal. This effect is called single event locking. In severe cases, it will lead to single particle combustion. The second effect is the internal charging of spacecraft. High-energy electrons have strong penetration ability. They can penetrate the shell of the satellite, enter the interior of the satellite, penetrate into the insulation medium and accumulate there. With the increase of accumulated charge, the electric field becomes stronger and stronger. When the electric field increases to a certain extent, the insulating medium is broken down. If this kind of event happens in the key part of the satellite, it may lead to the scrapping of the whole satellite. 1in may, 1998, a powerful high-energy electronic explosion made the American communication satellite "Yinhe 4" invalid, which led to the interruption of credit card business between some States in the United States and TV programs in some areas.

High energy particles also endanger the health of astronauts. 1989 65438+1October19 When the space shuttle Atlantis launched the Galileo spacecraft, the astronauts felt a flash, which was caused by high-energy particles hitting the retina. The astronauts had to return to the space shuttle, but their eyes were still severely stimulated. High-energy charged particles can also cause harm to aviation pilots and passengers. For example,1On September 29th, 989, the radiation monitor on the Concorde flying between Paris and Washington found that the radiation dose in the plane exceeded the warning line.

The third attack is the solar wind, which reaches the earth's magnetosphere two or three days after the flare, and can produce magnetic storms in the earth's space.

Strong solar particle radiation will also have an impact on human living environment. For example,1February 1965 and1August 1972 had two large proton events. The first one increased the number of ground neutrons by about 90 times, and the carbon isotope of 14 in the atmosphere increased by 10%. The second is to reduce stratospheric ozone 15% for a long time. The image of high-energy electrons penetrating the atmosphere taken by American satellite in 1994 shows that the intensity of high-energy electrons in the middle and low latitudes is also very high. High-energy electrons will produce nitrogen-containing compounds in the atmosphere, which will directly affect the global ozone distribution.

Ozone has a strong absorption effect on ultraviolet rays, and the existence of ozone layer prevents excessive ultraviolet rays from reaching the ground, which has an important protective effect on human beings and organisms.

According to the photon flux of soft X-rays emitted during solar flares, flares can be divided into three categories: C, M and X, with the lowest flux of C and the highest flux of X, with a difference of 10 times. Each category can be further subdivided into several small levels, such as C 1 to C9, X 1 to X20. From1October 28th 10 to1October 5th, 65438+X 17 already had two flares. Since 1976, only two X20 flares have been recorded, so 10 from the end of June to the beginning of June 1 1976 is the third largest flare since June 1976.

Coronal mass ejection

The outermost atmosphere of the sun is called the corona. Coronal mass ejection (CME) is a phenomenon in which the material in the corona expands or ejects outwards instantaneously. A large CME can contain 654.38 billion tons of substances, accelerating to hundreds or even thousands of kilometers per second. When they meet the earth's magnetosphere, they will cause strong disturbance to the magnetosphere. CME is sometimes accompanied by flare, but it usually happens alone. Flares are sometimes accompanied by CME, but sometimes they appear alone. In the year of maximum solar activity, the sun produces CME about three times a day, while in the year of minimum solar activity, it produces CME about every five days. The outward speed of fast CME can reach 2000 kilometers per second, while the normal solar wind speed is about 400 kilometers per second. CME is usually the source of large non-repetitive magnetic storms.

solar wind

Due to the high temperature of the corona gas, it is enough to overcome the gravity of the sun and leave the sun at a speed of about 400 kilometers per second. This outflow of plasma is called solar wind. The solar wind is mainly composed of protons and electrons, but there are also a few helium nuclei and trace heavy ions. Near the earth's orbit, the solar wind contains about 8 protons and the same number of electrons per cubic centimeter.

If we observe the sun in X-ray band, we can see that there are black areas on the surface of the sun, which are called coronal holes. It is generally believed that the high-speed solar wind originates from coronal holes. During solar flare, charged particles can accelerate to at least 100 times the speed of solar wind. When CME occurs, it is often accompanied by high-energy particle emission.

sun spot

Sunspots are black spots on the surface of the sun with instantaneous and concentrated magnetic fields. They are the most obvious features of the sun. The size of sunspots varies greatly, including small sunspots, medium sunspots, large sunspots and extra-large sunspots. The big sunspot is as big as the earth, and the extra-large sunspot is 10 times of the earth. Sunspots usually appear in groups, and a group of sunspots usually consists of several small, medium and large sunspots. Through the systematic observation of sunspots for more than 200 years, it is found that the number of sunspots reaches the maximum every 1 1.2 years. As the sun rotates, it takes about 27 days for a specific sunspot to return to the same position in the sun. That is to say, sunspots change every 27 days and 1 1 year. Sunspots, especially those with complex magnetic fields, are often the places where flares occur. At the end of last month and the beginning of this month, several large flares occurred in the area where the large sunspot groups 486 and 488 were located.

magnetic storm

Magnetic storm is a severe disturbance of the magnetic field around the world, and the disturbance lasts between ten hours and dozens of hours The disturbance of geomagnetic field is caused by the solar wind hitting the earth. Magnetic storms can damage the transmission system. In recent years, the most striking incident of magnetic storm destroying transmission system occurred in1March, 989. A strong magnetic storm destroyed a huge power system in Quebec, Canada. Six million residents lost power for nine hours, and the power loss alone reached 20 million kilowatts, resulting in a direct economic loss of about 500 million US dollars. According to the estimation of American scientists, if this incident happened in the northeast of the United States, the direct economic loss could reach 3 billion to 6 billion dollars.

Sudden ionospheric disturbance

The high-energy electromagnetic radiation bursts (ultraviolet rays and X-rays) produced by solar flares travel at the speed of light and reach the earth only 8 minutes after leaving the flare position. The direct reaction of the upper atmosphere to the ultraviolet and X-ray bursts produced by solar flares is to suddenly increase the ionization of the sunny hemisphere within a few minutes to several hours, and the short-wave and medium-wave radio signals immediately drop or even stop completely. This phenomenon is called sudden ionospheric disturbance, and there are many examples of ionospheric disturbance seriously affecting communication.

Scientists have also found that the long-term changes of some meteorological elements are related to the 1 1 and 22-year cycle of solar activity, and so on. The flood disaster in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River in China also has a quasi-cycle of about 22 years. Solar activity has a certain modulation effect on seismic activity. Statistical results show that strong seismic activity often occurs 3-4 years after the peak year of solar activity.

Disaster event

On March 1989, 13- 14, the solar storm caused a power outage in Quebec, Canada; Global radio communication is disturbed; A communication satellite in Japan is not normal; The orbit of a satellite in the United States dropped;

1991April 29th, a strong magnetic storm caused catastrophic damage to the nuclear power plant in Maine, USA.

1994 65438+1October 20 -2 1, two Canadian communication satellites are out of order;

The coronal mass ejection on June 6th-1997+0 1 day occurred in & T company communication satellite scrapped;

1May, 1998 19, the American Galaxy 4 communication satellite broke down and a German scientific satellite was scrapped at the same time;

On July 14, 2000, some important scientific research satellites in Europe and America, such as GOES, ACE, SOHO, WIND, were seriously damaged, the Japanese ASCA satellite was out of control, and the computer of Akbono satellite was damaged.

On June 28th, 2003, 10, some important scientific research satellites in Europe and America, such as GOES, ACE, SOHO and WIND, were damaged to varying degrees, and the Japanese echo satellite was out of control.