CNN News:太陽活動對地球的影響

Time for the Shoutout, which of the following objects is 93 million miles away from you? If you think, you know it, shout it out! Is it the International Space Station, the Sun, Mercury or Moon. You`ve got three seconds, go.It`s the Sun. It`s so far away that its light takes more than eight minutes to reach your eye. That`s your answer and that`s your shoutout.

又到了“大聲喊話”環(huán)節(jié)了，下面哪一個物品距離你有9300萬英里遠呢?如果知道的話就大聲喊出來!是國際空間站，是太陽，是水星還是月亮?你有三秒鐘時間回來。答案就是太陽。它距離我們太遠了，太陽光需要八分鐘的時間才能到達地球。這就是你的答案，下面正式進入此環(huán)節(jié)。

So, should you be concerned about something that happens some 93 million miles away? 100 years ago the answer was no, today the answer kind of depends. Do you use electronics? There are often storms on the Sun, there were some over the weekend. They were linked to solar flares that send magnetic gas flying toward Earth. A NASA scientist says no one on the ground was in any danger, but they could have affected some of the things we use every day.

你會與一個距離你9300萬英里遠的物體有關系么?100年前答案是沒有關系，但是現(xiàn)在答案卻不一定了。你使用電子產(chǎn)品么?在太陽上經(jīng)常爆發(fā)太陽風暴，有些時候在周末爆發(fā)，他們與太陽耀斑攜帶者大量磁性氣體朝著地球飛奔而來。一名美國宇航局科學家稱地球上的人不會有危險，但是會影響到我們每天使用的東西。

In March of 1989, a solar storm knocked out power for the Canadian province of Quebec. It took 12 hours for the lights and everything else to come back on. What else could happen?

在1989年三月，太陽風暴襲擊了加拿大魁北克省的電力網(wǎng)。此次襲擊花費了大約12小時恢復照明和其他供應。還會發(fā)生什么呢?

Now, the Sun has always been out there, there`s always been a solar wind, there`s always been solar flares, but now that we are so dependent on satellites, on GPS, on the power grid, now we`re worried about what the Sun is doing out there.

現(xiàn)在太陽一直呆在那里，太陽表面總會刮太陽風，于是就會產(chǎn)生太陽耀斑，但是現(xiàn)在我們又是如此依賴衛(wèi)星，GPS，電網(wǎng)，所以我們會擔心太陽活動的爆發(fā)。

Well, the solar flare comes out very quickly and it can really disrupt radio communications, especially high latitude radio communications. But a coronal mass ejection, when it comes toward the Earth, it is sending plasma, electrons, protons, the big solar wind that will energize the magnetosphere and possibly even energize the Earth itself and that`s what we`re concerned about.

太陽耀斑產(chǎn)生很快并且會對無線電影響非常大，尤其是對高緯度的無線電通訊。但是日冕物質(zhì)拋射，當日冕物質(zhì)朝著地球沖過來時同時會散發(fā)著等離子體，電子和質(zhì)子，巨大的太陽風將會加強磁場甚至會擾亂地球本身的磁場。這就是我們所擔心的問題。

Obviously, solar flares and CMEs have been hitting the Earth for billions of years, but we have now the technology in place that can be damaged by these CMEs, the satellites in place, the power grids in place. With a big CME or coronal mass ejection, we could lose the power grid. We could lose satellites, we could certainly lose GPS.

顯然太陽耀斑和日冕物質(zhì)已經(jīng)對地球造成了數(shù)十億年的沖擊。但是我們現(xiàn)在用有高科技設備，很可能被日冕物質(zhì)毀壞，衛(wèi)星也是，電網(wǎng)也是。一場日冕活動的爆發(fā)我們可能會失去一個電網(wǎng)?；蛟S可以失去衛(wèi)星，肯定會失去GPS。

You know, we think of geomagnetic storms as being fun because we get to see the northern lights, the aurora borealis, but there`s more to it than that.

我們認為地磁風暴是有趣的，因為我們可以看到北極光，極光，當然不止這些。

It can power the grid, it can make brown-outs in our electrical grid. It can turn our satellites off and maybe we even have to manually turn them off if there is too much energy coming at them. So, think of a world at least temporarily without satellites, without GPS, without communication.

它還可以增強電網(wǎng)電力，會造成電網(wǎng)暫時斷電。會關閉我們的衛(wèi)星工作，或者我們不得不手動關閉工作的衛(wèi)星，如果有巨大能量朝著他們發(fā)射的話?？梢韵胂笠幌乱粋€暫時沒有衛(wèi)星，沒有GPS，沒有交流的世界。

A lot of things could shut down with a big CME earth directed.

如果大量日冕物質(zhì)朝著地球拋射的話，地球上很多設備裝置將關閉。