jmo
I'd like to know if this affects carbon dating calculations.
MBadgero
"Good news, if true." But why? What happens in the sun 39 hours before a solar flare? If this is a repeatable, observable effect, it could tell us a lot about how radioactive decay works. Does the rate increase or decrease before the flare?
Chuck Anziulewicz
Thank goodness for the fact that astrophysicists are constant monitoring solar activity, so that something like the Carrington Event would not catch us unawares. Even if a truly gargantuan Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) took place and was determined to head our way, at least we would have a day or two of warning.
I've always wondered whether shutting down the power grid temporarily could avert the worst of the potential damage due to such an event. Thanks for pointing out that there ARE measures that can be taken. There's a big difference between taking such measures and doing without electricity for a few days, and NOT taking such measures and having our electric infrastructure in a complete shambles for MONTHS.
Joel Detrow
I get excited every time I hear about this theory regarding decay rates tied to solar activity. Science!
inchiki
this is fascinating! is this the long lost gravity particle being detected? or some other unknown field that permeates everything? feels like there could be a couple of Nobel prizes in here..
Snake Oil Baron
I'm not really sold on the idea but I do find it interesting. In certain situations, normal matter can produce neutrinos when it decays, right? So is it really so hard to envision neutrinos producing decay events in normal matter?
Heather Bowman
In what way does this effect radiometric dating?
piperTom
What's a "solar storm"? If you mean coronal mass ejection (CME), then less than 1 in a thousand is directed close enough to earth to cause concern. A detector that raises thousands of false alarms for every real event is useless.
There there's this: it's easy to see there could be a connection between cosmic ray background radiation and solar activity; it's "highly speculative" to see a connection with nuclear decay. Since the former is the noise in a measurement of the latter, experimental error seems the likely cause here.
Finally, gamma radiation does not (by itself) change one element to another. So your "manganese 54" to "chromium 54" reference is incomplete, at best.
BombR76
I like the comments of 'jmo' and 'Heather'. How DOES this effect radiometric dating?
We know that steady-state decay may not be steady-state, and therefore our calculations may be off, maybe way-off. Does science have empirical evidence that radiometric decay is the same today as it was eons ago? This is ground-breaking news !!!
Mel Tisdale
From what I know of the effects of solar flares, they are like the EMPs that could be used to knock out a country's electrical equipement and thus communications prior to launching a pre-emptive nuclear strike. If that is the case, then we live on borrowed time.
Advance warning will only enable a very small amount of protective measures to be put in place. It is no good just 'switching off' a satlellite, it has to be 'hardened' at the design stage and seeing as such hardening adds weight, I guess very few of the civilian ones are protected.
Just imagine the devastation a solar flare could cause. We really are the most stupid species on the face of the planet. We mess with the climate without having much idea on where it will take us and we create an infrastructure on which modern life depends which could be knocked almost completely out of action in the blink of an eye. If humans had not evolved, then we would have gorillas or chimps as the most advanced animal. They would only be of a number that the planet could support and a Carrington event would go by unnoticed, except for perhaps the aurora borealis, which might have drawn the occasional "Ug!"