by Michael Snyder
October 23, 2014
from
EndOfTheAmericanDream Website
Did you know that a storm 14 times larger than the
Earth is happening on the sun right now?
Earlier this week, it unleashed a flare which was a
million times more powerful than all of the nuclear weapons in
existence combined. Fortunately, that flare was not directed at us.
But now the area of the sun where this solar storm is
located is rotating toward Earth. An eruption on the sun at just the
right time and at just the right angle could result in a
society-crippling electromagnetic pulse blasting this planet.
So if your computers, cell phones and electronic
equipment get fried at some point over the next few weeks, you will
know what is probably to blame.
Such an electromagnetic pulse has hit our planet
before, and as you will read about below, some very prominent voices
are warning that it will happen again. It is just a matter of time.
Scientists tell us that the absolutely massive
sunspot group that has recently formed on the sun is highly unusual.
NASA has described it as "crackling" with magnetic energy.
The mainstream media has not been paying too much
attention to it, but this sunspot group is potentially extremely
dangerous.
The following is an excerpt from an article on Discovery.com
that gives some of the technical details about what has been going
on…
The sunspot, a dark patch in the sun’s
photosphere, represents intense solar magnetism bursting from
the sun’s interior known as an active region.
This particular active region, designated AR2192,
has been rumbling with intense flare activity, recently
exploding with 2 X-class flares, causing some short-lived
high-frequency (HF) radio black outs around the globe.
Such blackouts are triggered by the intense
extreme ultraviolet and X-ray radiation that solar flares can
generate, causing ionization effects in the Earth’s upper
atmosphere - a region known as the ionosphere.
HF radio can be strongly hindered by this
activity, triggering blackouts that can effect air traffic and
amateur radio operators.
The other day a flare erupted which did cause radio
blackouts all over the world for a time. But we were fortunate that
the flare was not directed at us. If it had been, the results could
have potentially been catastrophic.
We have not seen anything like this sunspot group for
a very long time, and according to a report posted by the
Daily Mail, experts are saying that we might not see
another one like this for 25 years…
Space Weather Prediction Center forecaster
Christopher Balch, meanwhile, said the flare affected radio that
uses part of the upper atmosphere. That includes some but not
all radar and plane systems as well as amateur radio.
Mr Balch said the storm briefly was rated as
strong for affecting Earth radio systems but then dropped to
minor levels. The event followed months of near-silent activity
on the sun before the huge flare erupted from a sunspot 14 times
bigger than Earth.
A spokesperson for the Met Office Space Weather
Operations Centre told MailOnline it
may be the biggest sunspot for
25 years.
Unfortunately, there are no signs that this sunspot
group is fading.
In fact, an official at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight
Center
said that,
"it
continues to grow in size and complexity".
Below, I have posted a video which shows some of the
recent activity on the sun.
As you can see, these explosions can be quite
violent…
As advanced as we like to think that we are, the
truth is that we are still very much at the mercy of this giant ball
of fire that our planet revolves around.
And even with everything else that is going on in the
world today, a massive electromagnetic burst from the sun remains
one of the greatest potential dangers to our way of life.
Just check out what billionaire Paul Singer recently
had to say about the matter.
He believes that an EMP event is "the most significant danger" the world is facing right now…
"While these pages are typically chock full of
scary or depressing scenarios, there is one risk that is
head-and-shoulders above all the rest in terms of the scope of
potential damage adjusted for the likelihood of occurrence,"
Singer wrote to clients of his $24.8 billion Elliott Management
on Monday in a standard investment update letter.
"Even
horrendous nuclear war, except in its most extreme form, can
[be] a relatively localized issue, and the threat from asteroids
can (possibly) be mitigated."
"(A natural EMP
event) today would cause a massive disruption to the electric
grid, possibly shutting it down entirely for months or longer,
with unimaginable consequences," Singer wrote.
"Only
two years ago, the sun let loose with a Carrington-magnitude
burst, but the position of the earth at the time prevented the
burst from hitting it. The
chances of additional events of such magnitude may be far
greater than most people think."
For those not familiar with "the Carrington Event",
it was a massive solar storm in 1859 that fried telegraph machines
all over Europe and North America.
Others share Singer’s concerns.
For example, check out what U.S. Representative Scott
Perry said earlier
this year…
"The
consequences of such an attack could be catastrophic; all
electronics, power systems, and information systems could be
shut down," Rep. Scott Perry said in prepared remarks
during an
EMP hearing in
May held by the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security.
"This
could then cascade into interdependent infrastructures such as
water, gas, and telecommunications. While we understand
this is an extreme case, we must always be prepared in case a
rogue state decides to utilize this technology."
What we are talking about is a potentially
society-crippling event.
For much more on this, I encourage you to check out
"What
are You Going to Do When a Massive EMP Blast Fries the U.S.
Electrical Grid?"
In a worst case scenario, we could be facing a
situation where the power grid is down for months or even years. How would you and your family survive during such a
crisis? Even though this has never happened in modern times, it is a
very real possibility.
In fact, just a couple of years ago the Earth
experienced a very near miss.
As the Inquisitr
detailed last month, such an event could throw us back into the
pre-industrial age in a single instant…
According to Peter Vincent Pry, who advises
Congress on homeland security issues, a large enough
geomagnetic solar storm could produce effects similar to an
electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by a nuclear weapon
that,
"could collapse power
grids everywhere on the planet and destroy EHV (extra high
voltage) transformers and other electronic systems that
would require years to repair or replace."
While
the danger posed by
a G5 solar storm gets mentioned
occasionally at Congressional hearings, there really hasn’t
been any major action.
Earlier this year, a Homeland Security
adviser said
America is not ready for an EMP attack, never mind a G5
solar storm, and it’s claimed that the
U.S. power grid fails more often than any other in the
world.
If a large enough
solar storm does impact the United States, the damaged
electronic systems can cause a cascade of failures
throughout the broader infrastructure, including banking
systems, energy systems, transportation systems, food
production and delivery systems, water systems, emergency
services, and even the internet, so people may not even
realize at first what has happened.
Effectively, the U.S.
would be thrown back to the pre-industrial age following a
solar super-storm, and yet we are not prepared for the worst.
Usually people talk about how this could
potentially happen "someday" in the future.
But with an extremely large solar storm currently
rotating toward Earth, there is a very real possibility that an
absolutely massive electromagnetic pulse could be headed our way
at any time.
However, whether it happens next week, next month
or next year, scientists assure us that it is inevitable that
another Carrington Event will happen one day.
And when it finally happens and all the lights
suddenly go out, what will our society look like afterwards?
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NASA's Solar
Dynamics Observatory caught this image of an
X1-class solar flare erupting from the sun on Oct.
25, 2014.
Credit: NASA/SDO |
The sun unleashed an
X2-class solar flare on Oct. 26, 2014. NASA's Solar
Dynamics Observatory captured this photo of the
flare (lower right). |
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