CNN News:太陽活動(dòng)對(duì)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(gè)物品距離你有9300萬英里遠(yuǎn)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(shí)間回來。答案就是太陽。它距離我們太遠(yuǎn)了，太陽光需要八分鐘的時(shí)間才能到達(dá)地球。這就是你的答案，下面正式進(jìn)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(huì)與一個(gè)距離你9300萬英里遠(yuǎn)的物體有關(guān)系么?100年前答案是沒有關(guān)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(fēng)暴，有些時(shí)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(xué)家稱地球上的人不會(huì)有危險(xiǎn)，但是會(huì)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(fēng)暴襲擊了加拿大魁北克省的電力網(wǎng)。此次襲擊花費(fèi)了大約12小時(shí)恢復(fù)照明和其他供應(yīng)。還會(huì)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(huì)刮太陽風(fēng)，于是就會(huì)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(huì)擔(dān)心太陽活動(dòng)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(huì)對(duì)無線電影響非常大，尤其是對(duì)高緯度的無線電通訊。但是日冕物質(zhì)拋射，當(dāng)日冕物質(zhì)朝著地球沖過來時(shí)同時(shí)會(huì)散發(fā)著等離子體，電子和質(zhì)子，巨大的太陽風(fēng)將會(huì)加強(qiáng)磁場(chǎng)甚至?xí)_亂地球本身的磁場(chǎng)。這就是我們所擔(dān)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(duì)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(shè)備，很可能被日冕物質(zhì)毀壞，衛(wèi)星也是，電網(wǎng)也是。一場(chǎng)日冕活動(dòng)的爆發(fā)我們可能會(huì)失去一個(gè)電網(wǎng)。或許可以失去衛(wèi)星，肯定會(huì)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(rèn)為地磁風(fēng)暴是有趣的，因?yàn)槲覀兛梢钥吹奖睒O光，極光，當(dāng)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(qiáng)電網(wǎng)電力，會(huì)造成電網(wǎng)暫時(shí)斷電。會(huì)關(guān)閉我們的衛(wèi)星工作，或者我們不得不手動(dòng)關(guān)閉工作的衛(wèi)星，如果有巨大能量朝著他們發(fā)射的話。可以想象一下一個(gè)暫時(shí)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(shè)備裝置將關(guān)閉。