What would be the effects of an extreme solar flare hitting the Earth?

Question

I am looking for the sorts of impacts that affect an individual person or family, and not just the power grid being destroyed. I am writing a YA novel showing how a boy and girl experience the event and how they get through it. Even if the scenario you can point me to is more serious, that is, not sueviable, it's still going to be useful for me.

And just for fun, what title would you give a novel like that?

Answer 1

Solar flares can make communication by radio and telephone difficult at times.



The earth itself is strongly protected by its magnetic field. When there is a great deal of solar activity we experience this as a beautiful display of Aurora Borealis reaching out from the North and Aurora Australis reaching out from the south. The more active the sun is, the further away from earth's magnetic poles this light will be visible in the sky.



Sometimes the ionic particles from the sun are of such a strength that they will saturate the electronics on board various satellites. This will interfere with satellite communication and we might lose TV signals or even phone connections. The ionic particles can in some cases destroy parts of a satellite's electronics and cause it to malfunction.



There is little to indicate that this radiation from the sun is of any danger to electronics located down on earth..



A massive solar super storm could possibly penetrate the earth's magnetic shielding to a certain extent and cause problems with ordinary electronics. This fortunately does not happen very often and would most likely render quite a few of our satellites useless.



One day if the worst come to the worst and we do have a solar super storm, then I will just be outside watching the sky and letting myself be fascinated by this amazing show from the twin auroras. They might even be visible in daylight.

Answer 2

4,000 Kelvin

Answer 3

You might call it "armageddon", but that's already been used.

The worst possible scenario is the "solar wind" could strip the atmosphere from earth.

Certainly not survivable.

Answer 4

One of the results is an electro magnetic pulse (emp) which could knock out electronics and electric power. It could also burn up wires, so no automobile transportation or electricity. Use your favorite search engine to find out more about the results of an electro magnetic pulse. I expect you will find allot of information.