Lead
The Sun is the main source of energy for the solar system, with more than 99% of the total mass of the solar system being the mass of the Sun, and the solar wind is brought about by charged particles of extremely high temperatures and high velocities, which produce highly active bursts on the surface of the Sun.
These eruptions are often blocked by the Sun's enormous gravitational pull, but they are occasionally emitted into the solar system, and the solar wind can wreak havoc on Earth's power grid if it hits Earth.
In the event of an abnormal power grid, the world's power system will be paralyzed, and human beings will be plunged into darkness, unable to use household appliances, transportation, and even human communication will come to a standstill.
Today's human society is more intelligent than the telecommunications society of 100 years ago, so if a similar large-scale power outage occurs, human society will be affected more and more.
So in this highly intelligent society, will humanity be completely plunged into darkness?
1. Recreate history.
In 1859, a particularly strong solar wind blew towards the earth.
At that time, the aurora could be seen all over the world overnight, and even in many other areas beyond the Arctic Circle.
At that time, people did not know the connection between the solar storm and the aurora, and thought that it was a miracle of God or some other unexpected phenomenon, so the solar storm did not have a great impact on humans.
However, the aurora is produced by the electromagnetic environment of the earth affected by the solar storm, and this solar storm has left a record for people, so this solar storm can be called the earliest solar storm recorded by humans.
A few days after this incident, people began to find that there were problems with some electrical systems, but the electrical system technology was not developed at that time, so it was normal for some electrical systems to have problems in these days, so people didn't pay much attention to it.
But then something really happened that drew attention to the consequences of solar storms, and the electromagnetic sparks that were emitted by the power of any pair of wires directly connected to each other on Earth were all caused by the abnormal activity of electrons.
From Britain to the United States, from Russia to India, people are troubled by crackling telegraph machines, bizarre fires on telegraph lines and sites, and even more puzzled by the occasional paralyzed telegraph machine.
As a result, after some research, it was discovered that the real cause of these strange phenomena was a particularly strong solar wind blowing to the earth.
In 1859, this particularly strong solar wind did not have a great impact on people's lives, at most it caused fires on power lines, but today the widespread use of microelectronic systems has made our lives much smarter.
Today's 1859 solar storm is a huge problem not only in the power generation line, but also in the communication line.
Due to the more developed lines and the more diverse devices connected, there is a large-scale line failure today, and the impact of the electrical system paralysis will not only be short-lived.
If the equipment damaged by the solar storm is not repaired in time, human society will enter a dark age when electrical appliances cannot be used, transportation vehicles cannot be used, and even communication equipment cannot be used.
So, what would be the impact of a solar storm stronger than 1859 in human history?
2. Super solar storms.
NASA scientists analyzed recorded data on solar activity and used it to train a set of models that predict solar activity, which is used by NASA to monitor solar activity.
The solar activity prediction model established by NASA researchers has been very effective in monitoring solar activity in the past one or two hundred years, but the solar wind is a very unpredictable phenomenon, because solar storms are generated by the eruption of charged particles on the surface of the sun, and these charged particles erupt after several days to weeks of movement before they can reach the earth, so even if NASA detects anomalies on the surface of the sun, it cannot warn of solar storms hours or days in advance.
However, NASA researchers are still very important to monitor solar activity, because solar storms do not erupt directly from the surface of the sun, and the solar wind is not produced by the movement of the same particles, which makes the outbreak of solar storms not instantaneous.
This phenomenon due to the different velocities of different particles can often be seen in the process of radiation wave propagation, solar storms are like radiation waves, but solar storms produce charged particles, so the propagation speed is faster, when solar storms erupt can quickly spread to the earth.
Assuming that it takes T time for a solar storm to reach the Earth, then people can avoid human error as long as they complete the warning of the solar storm before T time.
There is a potential relationship between the time and distance of the solar storm to the Earth, and to a certain extent, the time when the solar storm travels to the Earth and the distance of the Sun from the Earth.
The time it takes for a solar storm to propagate to Earth is also related to the density and activity of charged particles in space between the Sun and Earth, so NASA needs to train the model based on past solar storm data.
When solar storms erupted before there were no humans on Earth, humans did not have any response to solar storms, such as 13,000 years ago, when solar storms erupted, humans were already very developed.
Humans are building pyramids, stone circles, large boulders and other stone objects, all of which require human beings to know how to prevent disasters. In addition, solar storms will have a great impact on the earth's magnetic field, so humans will also observe and record the recovery of the earth's magnetic field.
However, in 1859, as humans had already established a telegraph network and power system, humans began to be prepared for solar storms in 1859, and the effects of solar storms could be observed and recorded.
When the impact of solar storms exceeds human expectations, mankind has not only perfected the system of recording solar storms, but also launched scientific research programs to study the causes of solar storms and how to predict them.
With the development of human society, more and more electrical systems have entered people's lives, so the harm caused by solar storms to human society is also increasing.
Since there is a fixed lower limit on the time it takes for a solar storm to travel to the Earth, humans need probes who can observe the sun to record information about the solar storm before it travels to the Earth.
If this is to be done, it would be necessary to build a large number of detectors between the Sun and the Earth, and these detectors would have to record every detail of the Sun, but now we all know that because the propagation speed of electromagnetic waves is limited, solar storms have already erupted by the time people receive electromagnetic waves emitted by the Sun.
3. Technological improvements.
There is an astronomer in the United States named Andrew Tizek, who proposed that in order to mitigate the effects of solar storms, it is necessary to establish some detectors between the sun and the earth, and the probes operating in near-Earth orbit can use the collision scattering of large-scale particles from the solar wind to give people an early warning.
This allows people to predict the direction of a solar storm in advance and then deactivate applications facing the sun to mitigate the effects of solar storms.
In response to Tizek's suggestion, American scientists have begun to try to build probes to monitor the direction of solar storm eruptions, and in the next year or two these probes can rise into orbit near the sun and begin work.
Before he stopped building more probes, he began to pay attention to the impact of solar storms on the earth's electrical system, and people will encounter great man-made disasters if they leave the electrical system in their daily lives, and even some patients will die if they leave the electrical system to treat equipment.
Therefore, Tizek formulated a large-scale solar storm outbreak plan, and the purpose of this plan is to prevent the impact of solar storms in the future.
However, in the future, people will not be able to protect against the effects of solar storms.
So Tizek began to put forward his own recommendations to the U.S. Congress for solar storm prevention, and Kizek believed that probes operating in orbit near the sun could provide early warning of the direction of the solar wind eruption, and these probes could be used in the new solar storm warning monitoring system to predict the impact of solar storms.
If some new probes are built, they can also be used to counter the impact of solar storms, and these new probes can also be used to discover new celestial bodies in space, which may contain materials that human beings can use to build space bases, and use solar energy to exploit the resources of the solar system on the space bases, so that human beings can live independently in space and be freer than human beings on the earth.
In the future, human beings can also use the resources in space to build solar energy collection stations, which can collect solar energy to the earth, so as to provide more electricity for human society, reduce dependence on the sun, and reduce the impact of solar storms.
epilogue
In the future, human beings should develop clean energy technologies, because these technologies will not bring additional burdens to the sun, and human beings can also find and develop resources on planets outside the solar system, so as to reduce excessive dependence on the sun and ensure the long-term survival and development of human civilization.
However, these ideas are only part of the possibility of human beings exploring solar energy in the future, with the continuous development of technology, perhaps human beings will find more ways to use solar energy, such as the future application prospects of Dyson sphere, etc., no matter how human beings use solar energy, the most important thing is that the sun is the largest source of energy on the earth, human beings should strengthen the monitoring and early warning system of solar activity, so as to improve the ability to respond to solar storms, and ensure that human society will not be disturbed too much because of solar activities, Mankind can continue to explore the unknowns of the solar system and the universe, and promote the development of science and technology and civilization.