The Superflare from "Knowing"

[AScaredObserver]

This si a weird topic, but the movie "Knowing" is what got me interested in learning about space weather. If y'all have watched the movie, you know it ends with the Earth being destroyed by a Superflare. Now, I've heard some people say the Sun CAN produce a similar superflare, but some also say it's not possible for our Sun to do that either. Does anyone know if a Superflare like the one in "Knowing" is possible from our Sun... or what would be needed for that to happen?

[tniickck]

4 hours ago, AScaredObserver said:

This si a weird topic, but the movie "Knowing" is what got me interested in learning about space weather. If y'all have watched the movie, you know it ends with the Earth being destroyed by a Superflare. Now, I've heard some people say the Sun CAN produce a similar superflare, but some also say it's not possible for our Sun to do that either. Does anyone know if a Superflare like the one in "Knowing" is possible from our Sun... or what would be needed for that to happen?

we know too little about Sun and it's flares. i mean we have recorded flare's strength for like 40 years only and we cant imagine the future chances of this from such a small amount of data. the only i can say that it will not happen in the next 50 years. you can read about Miyake's events if you are interested in this theme

you see the humanity living for about 2 millions of years and not being destroyed by solar flares. however, Mars became atmosphere-free because of a solar flare, you can read about it too (i am not trying to scare you, Earth's magnetic field is 500 times stronger than Mars one so the same event wouldn't harm Earth this much) 

Edited December 21, 2023 by tniickck

[arjemma]

The sun will eventually become a supernova and that will probably be the end of earth as we know it at least. The positive thing is that there is a looooong time to go until our star dies. Billions of years (hopefully).

So it depends on if we can say that is a solar flare. 

EDIT: I thought of the wrong thing. Thanks for pointing that out @hamateur 1953 and @tniickck
 

I probably have to go watching "Knowing" again.

Edited December 21, 2023 by arjemma

[AScaredObserver]

 

1 minute ago, arjemma said:

The sun will eventually become a supernova and that will probably be the end of earth as we know it at least. The positive thing is that there is a looooong time to go until our star dies. Billions of years (hopefully).

So it depends on if we can say that is a solar flare. 

Not really asking if it's a supernova, just asking if the scenario seen in "Knowing" is possible from our star.

[AvGuy]

58 minutes ago, tniickck said:

we know too little about Sun and it's flares. i mean we have recordé flare's strength for like 40 years only and we cant imagine the future chances of this from such a small amount of data. the only i can say that it will not happen in the next 50 years. you can read about Miyake's events if you are interested in this theme

you see the humanity living for about 2 millions of years and not being destroyed by solar flares. however, Mars became atmosphere-free because of a solar flare, you can read about it too (i am not trying to scare you, Earth's magnetic field is 500 times stronger than Mars one so the same event wouldn't harm Earth this much) 

There certainly be a major disruption of some technological services used on earth.

[tniickck]

43 minutes ago, AScaredObserver said:

 

Not really asking if it's a supernova, just asking if the scenario seen in "Knowing" is possible from our star.

it is not. the storm from this flare must be at least 500 times stronger than Carrington event. i guess it is not physically possible for the Sun to produce such a powerful and accurate for Earth CME

so do not be afraid, for earthlings solar activity is nothing more than a spectacular and nearly harmless thing

Edited December 21, 2023 by tniickck

[hamateur 1953]

Interesting subject.  Do all white dwarves explode?  I was under the impression that after our red giant phase and eventual contraction to a tiny white dwarf that eventually it would slowly expire.   Edit: I’m not particularly worried about Sirus B although if memory serves me, it is in this category. 

56 minutes ago, arjemma said:

The sun will eventually become a supernova and that will probably be the end of earth as we know it at least. The positive thing is that there is a looooong time to go until our star dies. Billions of years (hopefully).

So it depends on if we can say that is a solar flare. 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by hamateur 1953

[tniickck]

58 minutes ago, arjemma said:

The sun will eventually become a supernova and that will probably be the end of earth as we know it at least. The positive thing is that there is a looooong time to go until our star dies. Billions of years (hopefully).

So it depends on if we can say that is a solar flare. 

Sun will not become a supernova, actually. It will become a Red giant and then it will explode and form a White dwarf and planetary nebula @hamateur 1953 you are right

Edited December 21, 2023 by tniickck

[helios]

Superflares can be 10000 times as strong as the Carrington event. And they have been observed on stars similar to the sun.

But quoting wikipedia:
 

Quote

Since they can occur on stars of the same age, mass and composition as the Sun this cannot be ruled out, but no indication of solar superflares have been found for the past ten millennia. However, solar-type superflare stars are very rare and are magnetically much more active than the Sun; if solar superflares do occur, it may be in well-defined episodes that occupy a small fraction of its time.

So, that's not going to happen in our lifetime.

[hamateur 1953]

Honestly, I have heard of exploding white dwarves before.  @Archmonoth. Myself and @Sam Warfel were in a discussion about them some time back.  Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find out much more about them at the time. But thanks @tniickck and 200 sfi today or bust!! Haha. Mike. 

[Drax Spacex]

Before this happens, the First Order's Starkiller Base on the dark side of the Moon will pull all of the plasma energy out of the Sun to use as fuel to destroy key planets in the Rebellion, effectively preempting the Knowing superflare.

[Philalethes]

6 hours ago, AScaredObserver said:

This si a weird topic, but the movie "Knowing" is what got me interested in learning about space weather. If y'all have watched the movie, you know it ends with the Earth being destroyed by a Superflare. Now, I've heard some people say the Sun CAN produce a similar superflare, but some also say it's not possible for our Sun to do that either. Does anyone know if a Superflare like the one in "Knowing" is possible from our Sun... or what would be needed for that to happen?

For sure I've watched it, who can resist? I even rewatched it earlier this year.

But no, Sol is absolutely not capable of producing anything of a magnitude that would do anything even remotely resembling what you see at the end there. Take a look at e.g. this thread from last year discussing the maximum possible geomagnetic storm possible; there's some discussion about it, but in this post I mentioned how the strongest flare possible could potentially be as high as X1000, but could also be significantly lower.

That would almost definitely come with a very powerful CME, but the chances of such an extremely rare event being directed towards us in the first place is very unlikely to begin with. Also, while a CME that powerful might have posed more of a challenge to current grids, it still certainly wouldn't cause any immediate damage to the surface, let alone scorch everything like you see in the movie. As I mention in the post after that they estimated the Miyake event (and by extension some of the other similar ones) to have been X200+, and the trees where they first detected the carbon-14 spike associated with it survived that just fine (it should however be noted that we still don't really know for certain whether that was really Solar activity, but that's the leading hypothesis as far as I'm aware).

So in short: no, not even in the extremely rare event that the strongest possible flare launched an unprecedented CME straight at us would the surface ever be scorched like in the movie; it's pretty much only fiction, with just a smidgen of science in it.

Edited December 21, 2023 by Philalethes
typo

[arjemma]

1 hour ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Interesting subject.  Do all white dwarves explode?  I was under the impression that after our red giant phase and eventual contraction to a tiny white dwarf that eventually it would slowly expire.   Edit: I’m not particularly worried about Sirus B although if memory serves me, it is in this category. 

 

Fair point. Not sure what I was thinking there but either way nothing will most likely happen while we humans populate planet earth.

Edited December 21, 2023 by arjemma

[hamateur 1953]

54 minutes ago, Drax Spacex said:

Before this happens, the First Order's Starkiller Base on the dark side of the Moon will pull all of the plasma energy out of the Sun to use as fuel to destroy key planets in the Rebellion, effectively preempting the Knowing superflare.

Im still laughing.  Good one Drax!’

10 minutes ago, arjemma said:

Fair point. Not sure what I was thinking there but either way nothing will most likely happen while we humans populate planet earth.

I’m pretty ignorant as far as supernovae are concerned, tbh. I think there are two types of them and probably more since I read of them some fifty years ago.  It makes sense to me that we would have refined our knowledge since then, but I really haven’t been studying the subject at all since 1972 or so.  Long time ago. Haha. 

[AScaredObserver]

I'm glad the discussion about this topic wasn't one-sided. I've been very curious about this since it was the thing that brought me to this area of study.

[arjemma]

33 minutes ago, Philalethes said:

For sure I've watched it, who can resist? I even rewatched it earlier this year.

But no, Sol is absolutely not capable of producing anything of a magnitude that would do anything even remotely resembling what you see at the end there. Take a look at e.g. this thread from last year discussing the maximum possible geomagnetic storm possible; there's some discussion about it, but in this post I mentioned how the strongest flare possible could potentially be as high as X1000, but could also be significantly lower.

That would almost definitely come with a very powerful CME, but the chances of such an extremely rare event being directed towards us in the first place is very unlikely to begin with. Also, while a CME that powerful might have posed more of a challenge to current grids, it still certainly wouldn't cause any immediate damage to the surface, let alone scorch everything like you see in the movie. As I mention in the post after that they estimated the Miyake event (and by extension some of the other similar ones) to have been X200+, and the trees where they first detected the carbon-14 spike associated with it survived that just fine (it should however be noted that we still don't really know for certain whether that was really Solar activity, but that's the leading hypothesis as far as I'm aware).

So in short: no, not even in the extremely rare event that the strongest possible flare launched an unprecedented CME straight at us would the surface ever be scorched like in the movie; it's pretty much only fiction, with just a smidgen of science in it.

I agree with this. I have also seen some Youtube channels paint up a doomsday scenario where a CME strips the atmosphere and they usually use Mars as an example. It is believed that a solar storm was one of the things that dramatically thinned out it's atmosphere but what many forget it that there was an whole other situation on Mars. For example Mars magnetic field is a lot weaker than Earth's.

It's highly unlikely that a solar storm strips earth of it's atmosphere to the same degree as on Mars. It's easy to use for a click bait though.

[AScaredObserver]

1 hour ago, arjemma said:

...they usually use Mars as an example. It is believed that a solar storm was one of the things that dramatically thinned out it's atmosphere...

I've heard a theory it was a gamma ray burst possibly that did that.

[tniickck]

1 hour ago, AScaredObserver said:

I've heard a theory it was a gamma ray burst possibly that did that.

If gamma ray burst did that the Earth would have been hit too, so it was probably a solar storm

[David Silver]

Hmm, sounds like I need to see this film. Fun holiday viewing!

Also, it seems that a solar event strong enough to strip Mars’ atmosphere would do the same to Earth. Often in response to strong solar wind and CMEs, a planet’s field will strengthen and resist in response. I suppose a super flare that also flipped the Bz negative could do it there but not here? Earth and Mars are not always aligned of course. I wish we could know. Actually, I’d like a real video of that. 
Semi-unrelated: I enjoyed this NASA video about a recent event w Mars magnetosphere:

The Day Solar Wind Disappeared on Mars

 

[Newbie]

10 hours ago, hamateur 1953 said:

Interesting subject.  Do all white dwarves explode?  

 

When a white dwarf exceeds 1.4 solar masses it can explode.

The process occurs If the amount of actinides within a white dwarf's core exceeds a critical mass. It can set off an explosive, runaway nuclear fission chain reaction. This outburst can then trigger nuclear fusion, with atom nuclei fusing to generate huge amounts of energy.

Actinides are a series of metallic elements whose atomic numbers start from 89 and end at 103. Their radioactivity is one their most unique characteristics and due to their unstable nucleus, they decay into other elements breaking down into smaller particles.

N.

[hamateur 1953]

40 minutes ago, Newbie said:

When a white dwarf exceeds 1.4 solar masses it can explode.

The process occurs If the amount of actinides within a white dwarf's core exceeds a critical mass. It can set off an explosive, runaway nuclear fission chain reaction. This outburst can then trigger nuclear fusion, with atom nuclei fusing to generate huge amounts of energy.

Actinides are a series of metallic elements whose atomic numbers start from 89 and end at 103. Their radioactivity is one their most unique characteristics and due to their unstable nucleus, they decay into other elements breaking down into smaller particles.

N.

Very good explanation!  Makes sense as well.  Thanks. Mike.  Hagrid couldn’t care less unfortunately. He is infatuated with my ham rig taking up the former printer space right now. Later. 73.