CNN News:太阳风暴的影响

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.

太阳风暴的力量影响到地球的传送时间要比10分钟还要长很多。你可能没有注意到有什么不同，我也没有。但是科学家称，这是今年辐射量最大的太阳风暴。

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.

首先由于太阳表面能量喷发引起耀斑。这就向地球发射了大量的辐射粒子。这种辐射对人类是不构成威胁的，但是有些时候会影响电网和通讯系统的正常工作。

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

Rob Marciano 将解释太阳风暴是怎样影响地球和风暴的威力。

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

Rob，许多人都在问这种情况多长时间发生一次。你能多给大家介绍一下这个情况么?

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.

根据这段时间对太阳活动的记录，现在太阳活动正入活跃期。不只是现在，明年也将是这样。发生在星期天晚上的耀斑活动在上个星期四也发生过，也就是太阳活动正在频繁发生，而且发生在星期天晚上的那次活动能量相当强大。最起码发射出来的辐射量是这样子。

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).

再告诉你一点就是，当太阳黑子产生的时候会散发出带有辐射的太阳耀斑。同样会产生带电粒子。所以这是一件有双重影响的事件。辐射物质到达地球的时间很快。

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?

一些飞机不喜欢飞极点，因为会受到无线电的干扰，但是辐射物中的x射线不是，你知道的，你不想被x射线包围。所以一些飞机就绕道而行。现在带电粒子，或者这个我们称它为日冕物质抛射，简称CME，速度可达每小时100万英里。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9300万英里的距离，你可以算一下这个距离，它正从这么远的地方飞过来。谢天谢地这不是ex-耀斑，但是它能量也非常巨大，和ex-耀斑很相似。如果这就是ec-耀斑活动的话，那将会导致大规模的停电现象发生。

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 --

我们计算这可能是M-9号耀斑，可能导致大量广播系统停电。如果是G-3风暴的话，可能部分地区发生停电现象。但是也很有可能是G-2和G-3种风暴。