20 12 questions about the end of time

American scientists predict that a solar storm will occur in 90 seconds after 20 12 years.

20 12 The solar storm that occurred on September 22nd may lead to an unprecedented disaster on earth.

According to the website of British New Scientist magazine, recently, American scientists released a special report, in which they predicted that there would be a solar storm on September 22, 20 12. According to the analysis, it may lead to a global disaster, and some parts of the United States will fall into a disaster crisis after 90 seconds. The United States is likely to become a developing country, with economic losses as high as trillions of dollars. It may take 4- 10 years to recover, which is far more destructive than Hurricane Katrina.

According to a special report, there will be a 90-second solar storm crisis on September 22, 20 12.

20 12 at midnight on September 22nd, there will be flashing colored lights over Manhattan, new york. It is rare for new york citizens to see such a short and unique phenomenon similar to the aurora, which can only be seen in Antarctica. In just a few seconds, the light bulbs in residents' homes began to dim and flicker, and then became extremely bright. Then the light bulb went out completely. In 90 seconds, half of the eastern United States will be in a power outage crisis.

In a year, millions of Americans will die one after another, and the national infrastructure will be on the verge of collapse. The World Bank will declare the United States a developing country, and the same disasters will happen in Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Iceland), China and Japan. This disaster originated from a violent solar storm-from the surface of the sun 65.438+0.5 billion kilometers away from the earth.

The above may sound ridiculous, and many people will believe that there will be no such tragic disaster on earth. However, this is not alarmist. From June+10 in 5438, research funds were provided by NASA, and the National Academy of Sciences published a special report, which seriously put forward the "future solar storm crisis". The report pointed out that in the past few decades, while western culture developed rapidly, it also planted the seeds of destruction. The modern lifestyle and the science and technology it relies on are quietly pushing mankind to a particularly dangerous situation-the plasma ball ejected from the surface of the sun will destroy our power grid and cause fatal consequences.

Daniel Baker, a space climate expert at Colorado State University, was responsible for drafting this research report. He said: "We are getting closer and closer to the edge of possible disaster." A large number of plasma high-energy particles are released from the surface of the sun, which escape from the surface of the sun and travel through space in the form of solar wind. Sometimes the solar wind carries billions of tons of plasma balls. If a large number of plasma balls enter the earth's magnetic field, it will lead to a devastating disaster.

It is more destructive than Hurricane Katrina and often occurs in economically developed areas.

Plasma entering the earth's atmosphere will lead to the rapid change of the earth's magnetic field structure, which will induce the power grid with long wires on the ground to generate current. In this way, the copper wire of the transformer will be quickly heated and melted, and the current will be out of control. 1989 In March, a similar power outage occurred in Quebec, Canada, and 6 million residents spent nine hours without electricity. But worse things are not limited to this.

The worst space weather event in history occurred at 1859, which is the famous Carrington event, named after the British amateur astronomer Richard Carrington. This time it was caused by sunspots and lasted for 8 days. James Green, head of the Planetary Department of NASA, who was in charge of studying the carrington incident of 1859, said that although the solar surface eruption proved to be very powerful and terrible, we have not found anything worse than the carrington incident. Based on the prediction of solar storm events in 20 12 years, we can still survive. However, we will face two problems. First of all, the modern power grid covers a wider area and has a higher voltage. Although this provides a more effective power grid operation mode, it has also become the most vulnerable object to bad space weather. The higher power grid will become a very effective antenna, guiding huge direct current to the transformer. Secondly, the power grid system is closely related to our life, which is closely related to water supply and sewage treatment systems, supermarket logistics infrastructure, power station control systems, financial markets and other systems. If we combine the above two factors, we will clearly realize that if Carrington's space weather event is staged again, it will trigger an unprecedented catastrophic event in the world.

John Kap Capmann, an adviser to the National Academy of Sciences and an analyst in the power industry of Meta Technology in California, said: "This is very different from what we usually think of as a natural disaster. Solar storms often attack economically developed areas. "

The solar storm disaster may take 4- 10 years to recover.

According to this special report of the American Academy of Sciences, bad space weather will induce ground current in the United States, thus destroying 300 key transformers in the United States within 90 seconds and cutting off the power system of at least 65.438+300 million residents. The first difficulty is drinking water. For those residents living in high-rise buildings, drinking water is difficult to reach by pumping, and the source of drinking water will soon be cut off. Because of the power failure, water will not be pumped out of the reservoir. The current situation is not only that the power system transportation is interrupted, but also that there is no railway transportation and subway transportation has stopped; Daily necessities will soon be consumed, and the goods on the supermarket shelves will soon be sold out. Trucks carrying goods can only run before the fuel runs out. When the fuel runs out, the drivers are at a loss. Without electricity, gas stations can't extract fuel from underground oil storage tanks. For hospitals, without electricity and drinking water, medical care and medical rescue cannot be carried out.

What is really terrible is that the situation has not improved for several months, and it may last for several years. The melted transformer cannot be repaired, so it can only be replaced. Capmann said: "It may not be difficult to find a few spare transformers, but it will take a week or more for trained workers to install a new transformer. However, a large power infrastructure may be equipped with only one or two staff members for routine maintenance. "

Even if power is restored to some systems, there is no guarantee that they will not fail again. Almost all natural gas and fuel pipeline maintenance needs power support. Coal-fired power stations usually store coal for 30 days, but if there is no other transportation system to bring more coal, the power stations will stop generating electricity in the second month.

In fact, the situation will be worse. The social and economic losses caused by Hurricane Katrina can reach 810-12.5 billion dollars. According to the research report of the American Academy of Sciences, if a "serious geomagnetic storm event" occurs, it is likely to cause losses as high as 2 trillion US dollars. And this is only the economic loss in the first year of the disaster. If it takes 4- 10 years to recover from the disaster, it is doubtful whether the United States can recover from such a disaster.

"I don't think this special report is spreading rumors," said Mike Hapke, chairman of the Space Weather Research Group of the European Space Agency. Scientists' research and analysis of natural events are relatively objective, and their analysis is well thought out. This is a fair scientific analysis report, which deserves great attention. "

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Original report on the website of New Scientist magazine (in English)