CNN News:太陽風暴的影響

It took a lot longer than 10 minutes for the effects of a storm on the sun to reach the Earth. You probably didn`t notice anything different. I didn`t. But scientists say it was the most powerful radiation storm in years.

太陽風暴的力量影響到地球的傳送時間要比10分鐘還要長很多。你可能沒有注意到有什么不同，我也沒有。但是科學家稱，這是今年輻射量最大的太陽風暴。

It started with a solar flare, an intense eruption on the surface of the sun. That launched a storm of radiation particles toward the Earth. This kind of radiation isn`t dangerous to us, but it can sometimes affect things like power grids or communication systems.

首先由于太陽表面能量噴發(fā)引起耀斑。這就向地球發(fā)射了大量的輻射粒子。這種輻射對人類是不構成威脅的，但是有些時候會影響電網(wǎng)和通訊系統(tǒng)的正常工作。

Rob Marciano explains how these solar storms can impact the Earth, and how intense this one was.

Rob Marciano 將解釋太陽風暴是怎樣影響地球和風暴的威力。

Rob, a lot of us are wondering how often these things happen. Can we expect more of them?

Rob，許多人都在問這種情況多長時間發(fā)生一次。你能多給大家介紹一下這個情況么?

We`re entering this period of solar activity that`s going to be quite active, not just now, but going forward through next year. And the flare that happened Sunday night -- and there was one that happened last Thursday, so it`s happening quite often -- the flare that happened Sunday night was pretty strong, at least the radiation of it was.

根據(jù)這段時間對太陽活動的記錄，現(xiàn)在太陽活動正入活躍期。不只是現(xiàn)在，明年也將是這樣。發(fā)生在星期天晚上的耀斑活動在上個星期四也發(fā)生過，也就是太陽活動正在頻繁發(fā)生，而且發(fā)生在星期天晚上的那次活動能量相當強大。最起碼發(fā)射出來的輻射量是這樣子。

And just to give you a reminder, when you have a sunspot it emits a solar flare that has radiation with it. It also has charged particles. So it`s a two-pronged event basically. The radiation gets here a little bit faster (inaudible).

再告訴你一點就是，當太陽黑子產(chǎn)生的時候會散發(fā)出帶有輻射的太陽耀斑。同樣會產(chǎn)生帶電粒子。所以這是一件有雙重影響的事件。輻射物質到達地球的時間很快。

some planes they don`t like to fly over the Poles because one, it messes with the radio communications and, two, the x-rays from this radiation, it`s not -- you know, you don`t want to get zapped with too many x-rays. So some planes were diverted because of that. Now the charged particle or this -- what we call the coronal mass ejection, CME, travels at 1 million miles an hour. All right?

一些飛機不喜歡飛極點，因為會受到無線電的干擾，但是輻射物中的x射線不是，你知道的，你不想被x射線包圍。所以一些飛機就繞道而行?，F(xiàn)在帶電粒子，或者這個我們稱它為日冕物質拋射，簡稱CME，速度可達每小時100萬英里。是吧?

So 93 million miles away, you do the math. It`s coming at us right now. So this was not a ex-flare (ph), thank goodness, but it`s very, very close. If this was an ex-flare, this would be a major event that would trigger wide-scale blackouts.

所以9300萬英里的距離，你可以算一下這個距離，它正從這么遠的地方飛過來。謝天謝地這不是ex-耀斑，但是它能量也非常巨大，和ex-耀斑很相似。如果這就是ec-耀斑活動的話，那將會導致大規(guī)模的停電現(xiàn)象發(fā)生。

But we figure -- it was an M-9 flare, brief radio blackouts possible throughout the day today. And with a G-3 type of storm, it might be some power outages and spots. But it`s more going to be a G-2, G-3 --

我們計算這可能是M-9號耀斑，可能導致大量廣播系統(tǒng)停電。如果是G-3風暴的話，可能部分地區(qū)發(fā)生停電現(xiàn)象。但是也很有可能是G-2和G-3種風暴。