solar flare and earth

ilookcool said:

Ok, imagine a solar flare happens right in my room, will that be enough to destroy the earth?

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Uh...



Yeah.

Pthom said:

Uh...



Yeah.

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Well, that kind of depends on the circumstances and the size of the flare. But in most cases, I would agree with this assessment.

Define "destroy earth" first.

Depends on duration of the flare and angle it hits...

The weather man in our area brought it to our attention the other day that there is a giant crack in the sun that is being watched as it could produce the mother-of-all solar flares. Just thought I would mention it since you're pondering the personal impact of solar flares.

http://wtfdiam.stevenredhead.com/

ilookcool said:

Ok, imagine a solar flare happens right in my room, will that be enough to destroy the earth?

A source says to destroy the earth, 224M yottajoules (1 YJ = 10^24 joules) of energy is needed, but a solar flare can usually release 10^20 joules or large flares can emit up to 10 YJs, so a solar flare in my room can't destroy the earth. But the temperature inside a flare typically reaches 10 or 20 million, wouldn't that evaporate the whole earth anyway (thus destroy it)?

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Hmm, there's a few things here. First, is that 224 MILLION yottajoules, or just 224 yottajoules?

But then there's the temperature. Temperatures in a fusion reactor (that kind of "clean" nuclear power that they've been saying for the last 50 years is going to give us free energy about ten years from now) reach that high, but it won't destroy Earth because it's a rather diffuse gas at that temperature, and if the "core" became unsealed and opened up, the gas would expand and drop in temperature immediately.

Also (thirdly?) a solar flare may well have lots of energy, but it doesn't all hit Earth. A flare spreads out from the Sun in a cone that's surely an angle of several degrees of arc, but the Earth is a small "target" for the Sun. The Sun takes up (IIRC) about a half degree of arc in Earth's sky, and its diameter is 100 times that of Earth's, so Earth would have only 1/200th degree of arc when viewed from the Sun (a dot, perhaps barely visible as a disc, maybe like Mars or Venus in Earth's sky). If the flare goes through an area as large as a basketball court, Earth would be about the size of a baseball, so most of the flare's energy would miss Earth.

That's not to say a really big flare wouldn't affect Earth ... long story short, it's complicated.

Since you posted in SF/F, I'm guessing you have a story in mind in which a solar flare occurs in your room (imagining the scientific likelihood of this, the story so far appears to be at least as much fantasy as science fiction). Maybe you could tell us how and/or why that happens, and ... well, do you WANT it to destroy Earth?

Millions of yottajoules - that sounds so childish it could actually be right. No idea.

Anyway, there are two versions of "destroys Earth":
1. Earth turns into a inhospitable scorched rock.
2. Aliens come and count 1-2-4 because there is no more planet 3.

Either way, you can kiss good bye to your carpet.

ilookcool said:

By "destroying the earth" I mean like how Darth Vadar destroyed Alderaan in Star Wars Episode IV.

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Star Wars is too far removed from reality to serve as any kind of example, but i get the drift. To completely scatter the mass of earth into fragments which would not just condense back together, you'd need around 6*10^28 joules. A solar flare is about three orders of magnitude short of that, and the energy would not be applied with 100% efficiency. A solar flare could sterilize the earth, boil of the athmosphere and part of the outer layers of rock, but would not cause any serious damage to the planet itself. Temperature doesn't matter, it's no indication of actual energy.

It would probably screw up traffic pretty good, though.

caw

ilookcool said:

By "destroying the earth" I mean like how Darth Vadar destroyed Alderaan in Star Wars Episode IV.

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Hmm. We could have the Sun go nova, but I understand it's both the wrong type (as in too small) and the wrong part of its life (it's about in mid-life instead of end-life) to go nova.

You could direct the Moon or another planet into Earth. If you get the relative velocity up high enough it could result in something like another asteroid belt instead of two planets merged into one, but regardless, moving a planet takes a huge amount of energy.

I know, have a random planet from way out somewhere coming into the solar system at 13 miles per second (a good speed for a comet) and make a direct hit on Earth.

ilookcool said:

Oh it's 224 Million YTs, btw.

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So what's the T in 224 million YT's?

ilookcool said:

Ok, imagine a solar flare happens right in my room, will that be enough to destroy the earth?

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Sorry, this made me laugh. What is the significance of it happening in "your room"? If you were there to see it, you'd be crispier than Sunday bacon before you knew what happened. That's probably off-topic from what you were truly asking, but I was just curious, since you worded it that way.

ilookcool said:

By "destroying the earth" I mean like how Darth Vadar destroyed Alderaan in Star Wars Episode IV.

Oh it's 224 Million YTs, btw.

I'm just wondering if a machine can emit/simulate the power of a solar flare and direct that much power very very very close to earth, will the earth be destroyed like the poor Alderaan, or simply evaporated into gas, or will the earth just scratch its head, and say it's nothing because you need 224M YTs to destroy me!

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From what I understand about basic "space physics", no planet would explode like that from a laser burst (or whatever it was). Laser-type weapons are cutting tools, not explosives. And even if the planet exploded because of the damage done by the weapon (for whatever reason that might happen), it still wouldn't have put on a fireworks display. That was done purely for dramatic effect.

So if you're talking about harnessing the power of a solar flare, your answer lies in what type of weapon that power will be used for. It's not the power itself, but the delivery of that power, that truly matters.

Isn't there a similar conversation going on in some lab in Swizerland where they are about to create a black hole in the laboratory?

No.

They're not worried about burning up their carpet?

ilookcool said:

Ok, imagine a solar flare happens right in my room, will that be enough to destroy the earth?

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Um... lighting farts does not constitute a solar flare.

My mistake.......they don't think they will create a black hole. Their only intent is to replicate the Big Bang that created our whole known universe. They should be able to contain that with no problem.
Besides, they probably have good insurance should anything go amiss.

If you're meaning the Hadron Collider, didn't they fire that off once already? We're still here.

The "talk" about the LHC is, as is usually the case with any scientific topic in the media, pure manufactroversy. All the talk about black holes or strange matter is pure bullshit, perpetuated mostly by people who are willing to say anything to get some time in front of a TV camera.
And yes, it's been running for more than a week at 3.5 TeV, which is the curent records for particle accelerators, though only half of the maximum possible energy for the LHC.

From what I understood, they fired it off and it had a misfunction of some sort regarding wires, I think. So, the whole thing was shut down for repairs.

Shadow_Ferret said:

Um... lighting farts does not constitute a solar flare.

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You've never met my former college roommate Merle Davis, have you?

caw