New Scientist has an article about a recent NASA-funded report into plasma ejections from the Sun that could potentially wipe out our power grids with fairly chilling consequences:

The incursion of the plasma into our atmosphere causes rapid changes in the configuration of Earth’s magnetic field which, in turn, induce currents in the long wires of the power grids. The grids were not built to handle this sort of direct current electricity. The greatest danger is at the step-up and step-down transformers used to convert power from its transport voltage to domestically useful voltage. The increased DC current creates strong magnetic fields that saturate a transformer’s magnetic core. The result is runaway current in the transformer’s copper wiring, which rapidly heats up and melts.

Given that pretty much everything we do relies on electricity (water, food and heat are fairly important not to mention the world’s financial markets, healthcare, communications, the Internet) the simultaneous destruction of transformers would leave us severaly impaired.

According to the NAS [National Academy of Sciences] report, the impact of what it terms a “severe geomagnetic storm scenario” could be as high as $2 trillion [for the US alone]. And that’s just the first year after the storm. The NAS puts the recovery time at four to 10 years.

A new contender for geekiest tattoo? (where by geekiest I mean awesomest)

For pure geek see this.

• Fashion Lollies
• Forever blowing bubbles
• Cute, Sexy, Sweet, Funny
• Sticky
• Contraception
• Corner Frame
• 8-Bit Hippity-Hop (Gold Digger’s the best IMO)
• Memento Mori
• Domo arigato
• Holi

Snapped by the Hubble telescope this is a pretty rare thing to be able to see. From left to right we have:

• Enceladus – named after one of the Gigantes, Enceladus has water ice on its surface and could have liquid water too which raises the possibility of it supporting life
• Dione – is apparently named after an archaic Greek goddess/Titan who might be Aphrodite’s mother (though I was fairly sure Aphrodite was born from Uranus’s genitals and not much else), Dione also has surface ice and ‘wispy terrain’
• Titan – named for the Titans is the only body in the solar system (apart from Earth) that appears to have stable bodies of surface liquid (methane)
• Mimas – named after another Gigante, Mimas kinda looks a bit like the Death Star