Flares make a comeback

Yes, I was promised a Jet Pack. I have mentioned this before.

That was way back in my youthful years but such was the pace of technology then, the 1960's and 1970's ,that I fully expected to at least have daily use of one for business and leisure use by the time I was a fully grown adult.

Other inventions, gadgets and gizmo's were still in the fertile minds of Science Fiction and Fantasy writers but many of these have subsequently emerged or are pending as viable commercial products such as the mobile phone, driver-less cars and drones to name but a few.

There were doubts and second thoughts amongst scientists, philosophers, humanitarians and politicians over the development in the 1940's of the Atomic Bomb. Oppenheimer who was the Director of the Manhattan Project issued his ominous warning over the sheer power of the weapon repeating the words from Hindu Scripture " Now, I am become death, the destroyer of worlds".

There is no doubt that humankind has meddled with nature and natural forces and thrown in a few terrifying self made concoctions as well.

The overriding intentions, generally, have been to benefit the human race and there have been great leaps forward in medical practices, food production and education but as yet not in some instances distributed equitably.

We are now firmly in the realms of science fiction becoming science fact with talk of the first manned missions to other planets in our solar system. This is an indictment of the natural curiosity of the human race although cynically it may be a chance to have a quick look around for another host planet as we are proving to be very poor custodians of the one we live on now.

I do not want to sound like an enemy of progress and betterment but there are still many aspects of Earth and its immediate environments that we have not really studied in detail or physically explored.

Much of the ocean floors remain unfathomed and recent dramatic changes in climate and weather patterns have yet to be researched and explained as to cause and effect.

The launch, just a few days ago, of a NASA Solar Probe is a dedicated project to try to find out more about the electrical and magnetic fields and waves of our Sun.

The Probe itself, about the size of a small car, is to carry out 24 fly-bys of the Sun in the next seven years.

It will, when in position, be at some 3.83 million miles distance from the Sun's surface setting a new record for a projectile from Earth. It will also attain the highest ever velocity by a man made object at 430,000 miles per hour or the equivalent of seventeen orbits around the earth per hour.

The behaviour of the sun, and in particular the phenomena of solar flares or massive ejections of geomagnetic solar energy is of concern to scientists.

Coronal eruptions from the sun even from its 93 million mile separation can create magnetic storm conditions in the magnetosphere above the Earth. These have been regular events in documented history and there are tell tale indicators of other similar occurrences in pre-history.

The first real observation and measurement of a solar storm was in 1859 and this was named after one of the main scientists who realised the significance and potential of this to the Earth.

The Carrington Event was first seen in the formation of dark spots on the surface of the Sun from terrestrial telescopes. From August 28th to September 2nd in that year there were Aurora's visible globally giving a spectacular light show and in some parts of the world turning night time into day.

The bursts of geomagnetic energy caused the main communication system of the era, the wire telegraph to fail with Operators suffering shocks down the equipment and pylons and wires connecting up the stations were seen to emit sparks. Even after the power supplies to the telegraph network had been disconnected for safety reasons the Operators were still able to send and receive messages because of the absorption of geomagnetic waves.

Fast forward to the present day and our reliance, in many aspects of daily life wholly, on electrical equipment and you can appreciate the impact of a Carrington magnitude event on everyday existence on Earth.

Solar Storms in 1921 and 1950 caused disruption to radio signals and in 1989 the power supply to the Canadian city of Quebec failed from such an occurrence.

In 2014 the Scientists at NASA revealed that a Carrington sized eruption from the Sun just missed Earth some two years earlier.

The recently launched Parker Solar Probe will be able to shed some light on this solar phenomena but by the time we know about it we may already be hunkered down in our caves catching up on some long overdue contemplation by candlelight and bemoaning the frazzling of our phone, lap top, microwave and just about everything else upon which we had previously relied.