All language subtitles for Could Solar Storms Destroy Civilization Solar Flares & Coronal Mass Ejections

The Sun,

smooth and round and peaceful.

Except when it suddenly vomits radiation
and plasma in random directions.

These solar flares and coronal
mass ejections, or CMEs,

can hit Earth and have serious
consequences for humanity.

How exactly do they work?

How bad could they be?

And can we prepare for them?

[Intro music]

While the Sun seems pretty solid,
it's actually like a very hot ocean.

So hot that it rips atoms into electrons and nuclei,
all flowing around each other in a plasma.

This plasma is pushed around and
shaped by the Sun's magnetic field.

Similar to how the Sun's gravitational field reaches
out to the planets and shapes their orbits.

But magnetism is very different from gravity.

Magnetism is one part of a dual force:
Electromagnetism.

Electricity creates magnetic fields,
and magnetic fields create electricity.

On the Sun, the plasma—made of electrically
charged protons and electrons—

creates a magnetic field as they move,

and this magnetic field then
shapes the flow of particles.

They're stuck in a dynamic
feedback loop called a dynamo,

which keeps the sun's
magnetic field alive.

This magnetic field stores
enormous amounts of energy

and leaks out over the Solar System.

It carries with it a constant trickle of solar plasma,
like a light rain, known as the solar wind,

creating a sort of space weather.

But it isn't always calm and smooth.

As the sun's plasma churns
and flows around itself,

its magnetic field gets
all kinked and twisted.

This creates magnetic knots that
build up enormous amounts of energy.

When the magnetic knots break—like a
tangle of springs exploding outwards—

the Sun can vomit plasma and other
awful things into the Solar System.

These solar storms come in many types,

like solar flares; a tidal wave
of high-energy radiation.

They race through the solar system at the speed
of light, sweeping up protons in the solar wind,

accelerating them into a
high-speed solar-proton storm.

Then, there are coronal mass ejections,

which rip millions or billions of tons
of plasma from the Sun's atmosphere,

catapulting it through the solar system at
speeds of up to 9 million km/h.

When these monsters hit us,
nothing happens on Earth.

While even smaller storms
can damage satellites,

affect radio communication,

or be dangerous to astronauts,

for people on the surface,
space weather is harmless.

Earth's atmosphere protects us from
the worst effects of a solar flare

by absorbing the blast of X-rays
high up in the atmosphere,

well before it reaches the surface.

The electrified plasma from a CME is
deflected by the Earth's magnetic field,

diverting the energy storm to
the North and South Poles,

where energetic particles
fall into the atmosphere,

causing the atmosphere to glow
and creating beautiful auroras.

As with any sort of weather—
most of the time, things are fine.

Sometimes, there are hurricanes, though.

Or in the case of the Sun,
solar superstorms.

And we know that they happen
once or twice every century.

If one were to happen today, we
would first detect strong solar flares,

a sort of flash before the much
more dangerous thunder.

The thunder is a CME, consisting of
billions of tons of hot magnetic plasma

that crosses the 150 million kilometers
between the Sun and Earth

in less than a day.

When it arrives, it causes a shockwave that
violently compresses the Earth's magnetic field

and transfers energy into
the magnetosphere.

But it can get worse.

If the magnetic field of the CME is
aligned to Earth's in just the right way,

the two magnetic fields merge.

As the magnetic cloud passes over Earth,
it stretches the Earth's field into a long tail.

Eventually, the energy stored in the
tail becomes too much to contain.

It snaps and explosively releases
its energy towards Earth.

A geomagnetic storm has begun.

A few hundred years ago,
nobody would have cared.

This storm gushing over the Earth is not relevant
for machines made out of meat and bones.

But it's very relevant for machines
made out of metal and wire.

Remember the dynamo?

Magnetism creates electric currents.

Earth in the 21st century is covered in millions
of kilometers of wires, transporting electricity,

and a complex grid of machines, like
transformers, that make this transfer possible.

A CME's energy can induce currents in our power
grid that can either completely shut it down,

or worse, destroy the transformer
stations that keep our grid running.

This has happened already,

like when the Quebec power grid failed
after a strong solar storm in 1989.

But in general, our engineers know
how to deal with these storms,

and so we usually don't even notice.

The last time a solar hurricane
washed over Earth was in 1859:

The Carrington Event,

the largest geomagnetic storms
ever observed on Earth.

Massive auroras occurred
as far south as the Caribbean.

In some places, they were
so bright that people got up,

thinking the Sun was rising.

Luckily, we only had one
sort of modern technology:

telegraph systems.

They failed all over the world,

shocking their operators
and chucking out sparks.

Today, we have a tad more technology,

and our luck may run out soon.

Another bad solar storm is
bound to happen eventually.

A storm as strong as the Carrington Event
missed earth only by a small margin in 2012.

Studies projected that it would've inflicted
serious damage to electronic systems globally,

costing up to $2.6 trillion to the US alone.

The time to replace all the damaged systems
was estimated at between 4 and 10 years.

It's hard to say how bad
it could have been.

Experts disagreed.

Some assumed there would
just be temporary blackouts,

but others worried it
could be much worse.

We won't know for sure until
a big solar hurricane hits us.

The probability of such an event is
estimated to be 12% per decade.

That's about a 50/50 chance of
at least one in the next 50 years.

And, there is more unsettling news.

A 2019 paper found that
even calm stars, like our Sun,

can create superflares
every few thousand years.

Eruptions orders of magnitude
stronger than the strongest storms

we have observed in the Solar System.

If such a storm hits us unprepared, the
consequences could be catastrophic.

It's hard to overstate how much
we depend on electricity.

It's not just the lights at home.

It means no computers,

no communication,

no navigation.

A sustained power outage might lead
to a breakdown of the supply chain,

water supply systems failing

and hospital generators running dry,

supermarkets not being refilled

while food rots in the fields.

The lack of power might make it extremely
hard to reboot our broken power grid,

taking years or decades to
restart our starving civilization.

Okay, time to panic?

As much as daily newspapers might like for
solar storms to send us back to the Stone Age,

they probably won't.

Fortunately, even though solar
storms aren't preventable,

virtually all of their nasty side effects are.

Scientists observing the Sun have a few hours
up to a few days to see a CME coming.

And the engineers working the
systems that keep the world running

are well aware of the risks
posed by solar storms.

Transformers and substations
can be taken offline—

short preventative blackouts—

or in other words, by unplugging stuff.

Engineers can open up extra lines
to dissipate the extra power.

And with investment and upgrades cheap
compared to those other natural disasters require,

we could protect the world's electric grid
against even the nastiest of storms.

But we do need to prepare.

While the risk is manageable, it is real.

For while our Sun bathes us
in warm and pleasant light,

one day, it might send a monster our way

that we better be ready for.

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[Outro music]