It missed us by 9 days

Solar superstorms and Aurora Science in Alaska

Special thank you to our X-Ray tier patrons: Carlos Patricio, David Cichowski, Eddie Sabbah, Fabrice Eap, Gil Chesterton, Isabel Herstek, Margaux Lopez, Matt Kaminski, Michael Schneider, Patrick Olson, Vikram Bhat, Vincent Argiro, wc993219

Music provided by APM

Some solar flare footage courtesy of Deddy Dayag:

Some footage provided by videvo

If you liked this video check out these:
A picture of the beginning of the universe
Why is the Universe Flat? ft. Prof Alan Guth

Creator/Host: Dianna Cowern
Editor: Levi Butner
Producer: Kyle Kitzmiller

Resources and further reading:

[Apalapse]

I took my girlfriend Alice to see the Northern lights but she didn’t seem interested, so I asked, “Does the Aurora Bore you Alice?”

[Vikingwerk]

The thing that alarms me, is when the Carrington event happened, there was very little electrical infrastructure. Mainly telegraph stuff. There were reports of telegraph wires and offices catching fire.
Fast forward to today, and there is electrical wires in every home, every business, every building.
Never mind the power going out, think of the millions upon millions of structure fires as the wiring in the walls catches fire.

[BoogiDon]

Had this saved video saved to my “watch later” from 2 years ago. Crazy that it got recommended

[sueelliott]

2 years later, we had a major solar storm on 11/05/2024 with auroras almost worldwide. They are more frequent and getting slightly stronger

[susansisson]

I was traveling an hour south of Salem, Oregon on I-5 at 10 pm in the spring of 1982. I kept seeing green and pink lights in my rear view mirror, and when it hit me what I had been seeing, I pulled off the road and got out of the car. All around me, the sky was filled with swirling, dancing waves of pink and green light. I felt elated, as if I were slightly high, and for a few minutes I was enveloped in the magic of the moment. But I had to two more hours of driving before arriving home, and would be missed, so I reluctantly got back on my way, grateful for the opportunity to not only see, but experience the northern lights. Haven't seen them since, but will never forget the feeling.

[DMichaelAtLarge]

"Is the aurora borealis heavy?"
"No, it's pretty light."

That's a dad joke that even dads groan at.

[JordiVanderwaal]

Imagine hanging out with a friend at a parking lot and they just start giving you mind-blowing science facts explained in a way very easy to understand. I want a friend like that. :(

[samuelpearson-tsyc]

Skip forward two years and we just had one of the peak solar storm. Saw the northern lights here in mid UK! Absolutely amazing sights!

[Apalapse]

Current solar physics intern here studying CMEs! I'm actually going to school for space weather as well! I have to say, great video, and I'm very glad you made it! This was really factual and better than 99% of the videos I see on YouTube on solar flares and CMEs. 7:32 is such a great idea of what the aurora is "doing, " and something I have used to explain the processes in the magnetosphere and energy transfer to newcomers in the field.

One criticism, G1 is really nothing for power grids, and unless you're a satellite operator you probably don't need to worry. Even G5 is not a big deal, we've hit G5 without major power grid issues before... but the problem is that after G5 there's no way to "categorize" solar storms based on KPI alone, you would have to look at other measurements like DST, AE, etc. It's like an F5 tornado - you don't know the difference between a strong F5 and a weak F5 just by saying, "it's an F5." The 1989 storm is a great example of how GICs (ground-induced currents) can cause transformers to become overloaded, burning them out if they're "wet" transformers (older transformers that have water contaminated in the oil, creating boiling water bubbles that shred paper insulation between coils, sparking fires).

[jordoruiz]

Man, the way she is so passionate and her eyes light up when talking about this.
I want more friends like her

[islandlanguage]

I was living in Quebec in 1989 when the electricity went out. When the electric company said it was due to "solar flares" we all collectively rolled our eyes, thinking: "sure, it was the sun's fault that you can't run an electric company". Fortunately it was in the summer and only lasted for half a day.
But ten years later a freak January storm brought down power lines all over Quebec and some cities had no electricity for 3-4 weeks. Having millions of people without heat and power in the middle of Canadian winter was no joke. Thankfully there were very few deaths, as electric companies all over North America sent repair crews to help us. But if all of North America's electric grid went down one winter due to a solar flare, I shudder to think how bad it would be.

[CassieAngelica]

At this point I’m like: “I just want to finish this year in one piece.”

Edit: Thx for all the likes and responses folks, much love and support to everybody! We’ll make it through together.=)

[neurotransmissions]

We saw an aurora corona event when we visited Sweden this last winter and it honestly blew me off my feet. It was probably one of the coolest things I've seen in my life. If it's gonna be even stronger in three years or so...I may need to find my way up north again!

[MusicoLogic]

So that’s what it was! I was 6 living in Montréal and I remember that my dad explained something about the outage. I remember him talking about magnetic field.
How cool is this to have this content 33 years later that brings back memories of my late dad and final explanations about what happened!

Thank you so much.

[themattgang]

Oh wow this is fun video to watch LITERALLY ON FEBRUARY 2025.

[classicalsheetmusic]

I like how passionate she is about what she is talking about.

"And then we could lose our electricity 🤩,
and it could take us 10 years to repair it 🥰,
and your computers would get fried! 😇"

[milesd.]

these past couple years have just made me feel like i’m consistently watching my worst fears come true

[Pants]

"So much more interesting than I thought it would be" perfectly describes ALL of science, in my opinion! (especially when you're not learning it to be tested on later, but just to wonder at our natural world) Thanks for being one of the educators who can bring this joy to the masses!

[alyssabintifairuzmoe]

So, anyone got recommended this in 2025? cant be the only one right lol

[mspotato]

Damn, just what we needed after a pandemic and rising tensions of nuclear war: A solar super storm that can mess with every single electrical device on earth at once. the 2020s are lit.