Mars Got Cooked by a Recent Solar Storm (nytimes.com) 15
The sun fired off a volley of radiation-riddled outbursts in May. When they slammed into Earth's magnetic bubble, the world was treated to iridescent displays of the northern and southern lights. But our planet wasn't the only one in the solar firing line. From a report: A few days after Earth's light show, another series of eruptions screamed out of the sun. This time, on May 20, Mars was blitzed by a beast of a storm. Observed from Mars, "this was the strongest solar energetic particle event we've seen to date," said Shannon Curry, the principal investigator of NASA's Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution orbiter, or MAVEN, at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
When the barrage arrived, it set off an aurora that enveloped Mars from pole to pole in a shimmering glow. If they were standing on the Martian surface, "astronauts could see these auroras," Dr. Curry said. Based on scientific knowledge of atmospheric chemistry, she and other scientists say, observers on Mars would have seen a jade-green light show, although no color cameras picked it up on the surface. But it's very fortunate that no astronauts were there. Mars's thin atmosphere and the absence of a global magnetic shield meant that its surface, as registered by NASA's Curiosity rover, was showered by a radiation dose equivalent to 30 chest X-rays -- not a lethal dose, but certainly not pleasant to the human constitution.
When the barrage arrived, it set off an aurora that enveloped Mars from pole to pole in a shimmering glow. If they were standing on the Martian surface, "astronauts could see these auroras," Dr. Curry said. Based on scientific knowledge of atmospheric chemistry, she and other scientists say, observers on Mars would have seen a jade-green light show, although no color cameras picked it up on the surface. But it's very fortunate that no astronauts were there. Mars's thin atmosphere and the absence of a global magnetic shield meant that its surface, as registered by NASA's Curiosity rover, was showered by a radiation dose equivalent to 30 chest X-rays -- not a lethal dose, but certainly not pleasant to the human constitution.
30 chest x-rays? 2 mrem each (Score:5, Informative)
so 2 x 30 = 60 millirem. As we used to say in my nuke plant job, we call that the cafeteria.
Really, there are people living in cities on this Earth that get that in seven hours. Really. It's nothing and will do exactly nothing to you.
*yawn*
Re: 30 chest x-rays? 2 mrem each (Score:2)
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My wife grew up in Puno, Peru, at 12,600 feet altitude, her exposure there to cosmic radiation was something like 6-8 times that of sea level, plus there's plenty of ground radiation in the area, and cyanide in the water table. People there mostly die from things like car accidents and pneumonia, not cancer. It was interesting when a CME arrived though, we couldn't see the auroras there but the florescent lights would flicker all night long.
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JPL says that is equivalent to 30 chest x-rays, which actually seems a little low based on the figure of 0.1 uSv typically given for such a procedure.
Anyway, there is a reason why doctors leave the room when they perform those x-rays. Individually they are inconsequential, repeatedly they start to become a problem. This being a rare event on Mars, there is not much to worry about... But if your cafeteria really was that bad, you would have a serious problem going there every day.
Misread (Score:3)
I misread the headline out of the corner of my eye and thought it said, "Man gets cooked..."
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I misread the headline out of the corner of my eye and thought it said, "Man gets cooked..."
Perhaps in a Rod SerlingTV episode.
some more information (Score:5, Informative)
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thanks!
one of these days (Score:2)
Jade green light show? (Score:1)
So, not a Jade Blue Afterglow?
https://x-files.fandom.com/wik... [fandom.com]
The fine article says it was fortunate no astronauts were caught out in the solar storm. Yes, thank goodness they had prior warning from solar observation satellites and a shelter made of more than one foot of reinforced concrete to shield them from the radiation. I mean, if there were astronauts on Mars currently. Because there are no astronauts on Mars building a colony to protect a selected population of people from Earth when the next maj
Cooked? It's not even defrosted! (Score:2)
Or is this somehow like a Baked Alaska?