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T minus 10, nine, eight--
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Seven, six, five, four--
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A critical new warning system is taking
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shape deep in outer space.
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Zero, and lift off.
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The Falcon takes flight propelling the deep space
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climate observatory on a million mile journey to
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protect our planet Earth.
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On February 11, 2015, a Falcon Nine rocket
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lifted off from Cape Canaveral carrying one
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of the most important satellites ever to be sent in space.
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The Deep Space Climate Observatory, or Discover.
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Once reaching its orbit 100 days later,
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nearly a million miles from Earth,
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and 93 million miles from the Sun,
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Discover became the newest weapon in a growing battle
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to protect our planet against
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a potentially devastating threat,
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massive waves of highly charged solar particles
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that periodically erupt from our very own Sun.
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We don't understand the Sun.
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And when we look at it we're trying to figure out
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how does it work?
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And a lot of that it is,
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how does it work so we know how it affects us?
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93.5 million miles away from Earth
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most of us are completely oblivious to the extraordinary
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activity taking place on our Sun's surface.
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The Sun gives us warmth
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and light as we go about our daily lives.
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It fuels weather patterns that bring nurturing rains
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and ultimately gives rise to virtually
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all life on our planet.
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But our sun also has a dark side.
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It can produce powerful solar flares
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and even more violent coronal mass ejections
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that could potentially cripple most electronic devices,
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communication networks,
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even the veery power grid we depend on every day.
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Well, worst case scenario would be something like another
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Carrington Event, or perhaps even stronger occurring now
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in today's highly technologically reliant society
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you'd have much, much greater effects on all of our
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infrastructure in a Carrington-like event.
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The Carrington Event was one of the strongest
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solar storms ever recorded.
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On September 1, 1859 British astronomer Richard Carrington
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was observing the Sun when he noticed a bright flash.
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Less than a day later telegraph lines across America
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and Europe began to spark and flare completely frying
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large swaths of the network.
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Outside, an eerie glow illuminated the night sky.
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For the first time millions of people outside
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the polar regions were treated to a brilliant display
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they'd never witnessed before, the Aurora Borealis.
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Magnetic storms and auroral storms had been seen for
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centuries, of course, but there was no direct link between
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those and the sun until the 1859 event
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in which Richard Carrington saw a very large flare
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go off on the sun.
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This was the first, at least in western times,
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recorded instance of an observation of a solar flare.
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Within about 17 hours of him witnessing that flare,
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there was a gigantic magnetic storm on Earth,
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one of the largest we've ever recorded.
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This caused aurora to go all the way down
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to Central America and Cuba.
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Typically the aurora are confined to the polar regions,
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you're lucky if you see them in
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the northern United States at times.
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The aurora in this case in 1859 was very, very bright
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all the way down to Venezuela and Cuba
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and we have reports from Hawaii of the aurora in that storm.
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A solar storm of that magnitude
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could have a devastating impact on critical communications,
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banking, and transportation networks.
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It could also damage millions of custom built power
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transformers that could take months to replace.
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And if you have large amounts of this charged material
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coming into the Earth's atmosphere it can actually disrupt
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power grids, it can blow them out.
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So, basically it can introduce surges of power into
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our power grids and take down large power grids
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across the world.
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The most recent and most impactful storm is probably
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in 1989 when there was a large scale blackout
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of the Quebec power system caused by a coronal mass ejection
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and that was a storm not quite as large in terms of
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magnetic effects as the Carrington Event perhaps.
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On March 13, 1989, it took over 75 seconds
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for an electrical current from the aurora to penetrate
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the ground and cause a catastrophic failure
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of the Quebec power system.
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For seven hours the three million residents of Montreal
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were without power in the dead of winter,
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shutting down almost all forms of transportation.
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It it happened today a Carrington level solar event
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could create unprecedented panic and chaos.
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Scientists believe it could cost the US alone
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more than three trillion dollars
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and leave millions of people along the densely populated
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eastern seaboard without power for up to a year.
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Our ability to forecast what the Sun will do is surprisingly
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limited considering it's our nearest star.
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The Sun contains 99.9% of all mass in our solar system.
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It's so big, in fact, that you could fit 1.3 million
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Earths inside it.
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Energy is produced in the center of the Sun,
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takes about 30,000 years to get to the surface.
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So, when we're looking at the surface of the Sun right now,
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we're looking at energy that was produced 30,000 years ago.
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Near the center of the Sun we know that
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immense pressure is forcing hydrogen atoms to combine
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to form helium in a process known as nuclear fusion.
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The energy released is equivalent to billions of hydrogen
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bombs going off in the core every second.
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The sheer size and immense power of the Sun are hard
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to grasp and make it extremely difficult to study.
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We can see very, very shallowly into the Sun,
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we can't see down to the center at all.
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So, everything that we know about what goes on in the Sun
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is either from the energy that comes out on the surface
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of it and we mix that with theoretical calculations,
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say, okay, we know what's going on at that upper layer
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of the Sun that we can see,
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let's use theory to calculate what's going on
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right under that.
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The Sun is monitored continually by telescopes
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both on the ground and in orbit.
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And the two things you really have to monitor about the sun
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is the radio output, the photons, and the magnetic field.
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So, the photons are monitored with a traditional telescope
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looking at the light output of the sun,
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but we also look at all the wavelengths that we can
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coming out of the Sun.
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So, there you need an orbiting telescope.
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All the way out to radio wavelengths.
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So, we have ground based radio telescopes looking at the sun
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monitoring its radio output continually.
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Scientific study of the Sun began in the 1600s
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when Galileo discovered that he could observe the Sun's
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surface by projecting an image of it onto paper.
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He was surprised to learn that the Sun wasn't perfect.
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Dark splotches littered its face.
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And when he stacked his daily sketches together
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into the world's first flip book movie,
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he realized something else, those splotches,
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and the entire Sun, were actually rotating.
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Sunspots are relatively cool areas on the Sun's surface
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caused by intense concentrations of magnetic activity.
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They can grow to more than 20 times the size of Earth
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and provide a warning for some of
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the Sun's deadliest eruptions.
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So, we have a lot of observatories around the world
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looking at the sunspots on the surface of the sun.
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And for well over 100 years there have been sunspot
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counts, people have counted the number of sunspots on
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the sun everyday to tell us how active it is.
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The spots are the result of magnetic fields that get
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twisted underneath the surface of the sun
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and we can watch those spots come and go on more
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or less an 11 year cycle.
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So, the sun has an 11 year cycle of twisting up its field
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lines, producing these spots then they go away,
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and then they come back, and then they go away.
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And again, this is on an 11 year cycle more or less.
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Anytime you see a sunspot,
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a sunspot will typically have another sunspot,
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its twin, which is the opposite magnetic field polarity,
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so they tend to come in pairs
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or at least in magnetic polarity pairs
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and they represent very, very intense magnetic fields,
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thousands of times more intense
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than the Earth's magnetic field.
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And what they do is because of the intense magnetic fields
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they suppress the normal convection or heat flow in the Sun
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and therefore the light, the heat,
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everything you see when you see the Sun,
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is sort of blocked by a sunspot
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and that's why they become a dark,
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visible dark spot on the Sun.
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In spite of all the work that's gone into
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tracking and studying sunspots,
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we still know remarkably little about why they occur
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and the impact they could have on our planet.
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There was a time in the 1600s where there were no sunspots
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recorded on the Sun for decades.
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It's called a Maunder Minimum
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and if you look at artwork form that time period,
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especially in Europe, you'll see that there are some
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rivers that are frozen that haven't frozen since.
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We don't know why the Sun lost its activity
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for several decades.
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We don't know why it stopped producing sunspots,
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we don't know why it started producing sunspots again.
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We don't know when it could happen again.
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That could happen at any time.
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What we do know is that wen the Sun changes its activity,
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when it's no longer doing what we're used to it doing
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every time it can affect us quite a bit.
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Scientists aggressively monitor sunspots
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because they're the key to forecasting
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dangerous solar flares and the even more devastating
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coronal mass ejections they can produce
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that spew vast clouds of magnetic solar plasma
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out into the universe.
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A solar flare, is again,
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tens of thousands of hydrogen bombs in terms of its energy
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intensity, it's a huge, huge event compared to anything
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we have on Earth and a coronal mass ejection has been
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likened to having hundreds of thousands of tons
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of material come out of the Sun at five million miles
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an hour, so if you can imagine hundreds of thousands
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of battle ships, for instance,
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in terms of tonnage of weight coming out in a few seconds
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in one gigantic eruption, that's what we're looking at
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in terms of a coronal mass ejection.
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Our only protection from these extraordinary
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events and the daily bombardment of radioactive particles
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from the Sun is the Earth's own magnetic field.
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If the Earth didn't have a magnetic field
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that would be very dangerous to humans.
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Actually all types of life because that's radiation
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and if we didn't have our magnetic field of the Earth
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protecting us, that radiation would get into your DNA,
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mess with it, mutate it potentially, destroy it,
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and it would make it very hard for life to live.
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So, we rely on our magnetic field to protect us
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from this gentle breeze from the Sun.
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Hardly a gentle breeze.
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Out sun is sending us wave after wave of electromagnetic
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and radioactive material that's a constant threat
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to some of our most valuable assets on the planet.
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This stuff is actually important to us
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because it interacts with the Earth.
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If you have enough of that material coming off the surface
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of the Sun it could actually impair some
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of the communications on the Earth,
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you can ionize some of the upper regions of the atmosphere,
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you can ionize, means that you can take some electrons off
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of the atoms and that causes you to have a charged region
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in the atmosphere and that disrupts radio communications
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that rely on bouncing signals off the upper atmosphere.
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Possibly the most vulnerable is our
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global aviation infrastructure
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where radio communication is critical.
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Anytime an aircraft is flying they have a requirement
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to report in on regular intervals using radio
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to the ground station so that they know
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that the aircraft is okay.
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During a large solar event those radio communications
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are completely unavailable.
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So, a polar aircraft flight will not be able to communicate
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with its ground stations during
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a large solar flare, for instance.
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Typically they're either rerouted
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or they lower them in altitude
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because not only do they lose communication due
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to the solar flare effect on the ionosphere,
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but there's a large outpouring of charge particles
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or particle radiation.
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With so much at stake,
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scientists around the world are searching for ways
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to provide more advanced warning
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and gain a finer understanding of
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the greatest potential threats.
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The three big outputs form a solar eruption are
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the electromagnetic radiation, the flare,
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which arrives at the speed of light,
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and then the coronal mass ejection going about
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five million miles an hour coming out
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as a magnetic cloud afterwards,
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but ahead of that magnetic cloud you have a shockwave
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that actually accelerates particles to near the speed
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of light, so after the flare the next thing you see are
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these electromagnetic particles coming down before
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the arrival of a coronal mass ejection.
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The initial and greatest threat from space
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weather will not be directly to planet Earth,
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but to the over 1,000 telecommunication satellites
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that ar ein orbit and provide every imaginable convenience
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from GPS to phone service
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to military surveillance and research.
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Geomagnetic storms can penetrate the outer shells
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of satellites, disrupt communication,
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destroy electrical systems,
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and cause premature reentry as it did for Skylab in 1979.
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In the US a small fleet of NOAA and NASA satellites
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and telescopes continually monitor the sun
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in a variety of wavelengths allowing officials
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to issue warnings roughly 30 to 60 minutes
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before the most energetic storms strike.
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The scientists and engineers who prepared NASA's Discover
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satellite for its five year mission hope it will
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increase the amount of warning time up to a full 24 hours
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or more and provide more precise data on where the worst
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effects will be felt.
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Recovery has acquisitioned a signal.
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Standing by to pass through
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the maximum aerodynamic pressure.
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Vehicle is supersonic.
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After launching in 2015 Discover traveled
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more than a million miles to its new watch post in space.
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A point of equal gravitational pull
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between the Earth and the sun.
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These are some of the first images that returned,
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looking back at our planet with its epic polychromatic
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imaging camera that's being used to study
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Earth's atmosphere and climate.
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Building on Discover's advanced suite of solar warning
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instruments will be an even more ambitious mission.
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Designed to gain a deeper understanding of the sun
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than ever before.
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This is the Parker Solar Probe, or Solar Probe Plus,
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a one and a half billion dollar experiment
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set to be launched in 2018.
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It will travel up to 430 miles a second
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and eventually dip into the Sun's atmosphere, the corona,
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to get the closest look yet at where devastating
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coronal mass ejections are born.
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It will takes years for the Parker Solar Probe
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to make its hazardous approach into the Sun's corona
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in a series of enormous elliptical orbits.
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But scientists hope that the data it gathers
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will ultimately allow them to better understand
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and forecast major solar events with far greater lead
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time so that better preventative measures can be developed
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to protect the sensitive electronics
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and our vulnerable power grid.
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Until then, the world will have to continue to rely
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on the somewhat limited knowledge we've been able
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to glean from more distant observations
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of our violent sun.
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This a bit surprising with our sun,
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it's the closest star to us by far,
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we have incredible amount of data on it,
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we can measure its magnetic fields,
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we can measure the material coming off of it,
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we can measure the energy coming off of it extremely well,
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we still don't know everything about it.
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(dramatic music)
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