
English: 
The genius new product that lets you crack
open eggs... Oh, hello I was just working on
a multi-million dollar lawsuit...
Imagine if electrical power suddenly
went out for millions of people. And not
just for hours, but for months, and maybe even
years. Throwing our world into chaos
and crippling everything from communication
to food and water distribution. It sounds
like the start of a post-apocalyptic
movie, but there's a real possibility
that it could happen. It's called a low-
probability, high-consequence event. A
massive solar storm could knock out
electrical power and wreak havoc on
nearly every aspect of modern life. But
it's not something we're really
preparing for because for most of us, it
just doesn't register as a big threat.

Chinese: 
(電視播映著廣告內容)
(電視播映著廣告內容)
...
我們準備好
我們準備好
面對
我們準備好
面對
全球性的大停電了嗎?
試著想像，如果供應數百萬人生活的電力突然中斷，
而且持續不只幾個小時，而是數個月
甚至可能是數年的時間...
導致世界陷入了混亂
並且使得從傳播通訊到水資源及食物的分配
等系統全面崩潰
這聽起來很像是末日電影才會遇到的情節
但在現實生活中，這種情況是很有可能會發生
它被稱為「低機率、高後果」事件
強烈的太陽風暴能癱瘓電力系統
並讓我們所擁有的現代科技通通打回原型
但面對此災害，我們卻沒有做好任何準備
因為大多數人並沒有把它視為一重大威脅

English: 
But here's the thing. It's happened
before. If you were around on September
1st 1859, it would have been a pretty
weird day. As the sun set, the night sky
lit up with a brilliant light show.
These were Auroras. Electrically charged
particles from the Sun colliding with
the Earth's atmosphere. And, they were so
bright in some parts of the world, you
could read a newspaper outside in the
middle of the night. And you could even
see these Aurora's as far south as
Hawaii, where they'd never been seen before. What little electronics we had back then,
well, they suddenly went haywire.
Telegraph lines overloaded, threw
Sparks even lit Telegraph paper on fire. This was the solar storm of 1859, often
referred to as the Carrington Event. If
if it happened today, well, it could knock
us back a hundred years to a pre-
electrical age. So what exactly is a
solar storm?  It's basically a catch-all
term for when the Sun erupts a bunch of
mass and energy into space. It
usually starts with sunspots, cooler

Chinese: 
但事實上，此事件是有例可循的
如果你剛好處在1859年的9月1號，
你將度過一個很怪異的一天
當夜幕低垂時，昏暗的天空卻上演著精采的燈光秀，
也就是極光
因來自太陽的帶電粒子與地球大氣層相撞而產生
而它們是如此之亮，以致有些地區的人們
都能在半夜走到戶外閱讀報紙
甚至遠在夏威夷，你也能體驗到極光的魅力
這在當地可是前所未聞的
而當時我們所擁有為數不多的電子用品
它們瞬間陷入混亂，電報線的超載所產生的火花
甚至點燃一旁的電報紙並引發火勢
這就是1895年的太陽風暴，也被稱作「卡靈頓事件」
如果換作是今天發生這種事
那麼
它將硬生生把我們的生活送回前工業時代
說到底，什麼是太陽風暴?
基本上，就是指太陽往宇宙噴發出無數的質子和能量
它通常從「太陽黑子」產生

Chinese: 
一個在太陽表面的低溫地區並產生強烈的磁場活動
這些太陽黑子和「閃焰」及「日冕拋射物質-簡稱CME」
有著密切的關聯
閃焰即是一種能量的爆發，
能夠往地球噴射巨量的能量及粒子
雖然大部分的物質在地球的磁場及大氣層
之阻擋下轉向，
閃焰還是能干擾通訊系統及導航定位系統
但換作是大量的日冕拋射物質將造成現代科技
空前的浩劫
它是由於太陽上的磁化電漿噴發，並藉由太陽風
將該能量傳送至地球
它的到來將覆蓋住地球上的磁場
大約每隔11年，該活動將達到高峰
一連串非常糟糕的閃焰和CME可對我們的電力系統
造成可觀的災害，並讓地球上大部分區域
變成「黑暗大陸」
其實我們能預見它將對我們的科技造成什麼

English: 
areas on the surface of the Sun that
form over areas of intense magnetic
activity. It's these sunspots that
are tied to an increase in phenomenon
known as solar flares and Coronal Mass
Ejections (or CMEs for short). Solar flares are
energetic explosions they can blast
enormous amounts of energy and particles
towards Earth. While a lot of it is
deflected by the Earth's magnetic field
and atmosphere, solar flares can still
interfere with communications and
navigation systems. But it's a large CME that can cause
real chaos for modern technology. It's an
eruption of the sun's magnetized plasma
that is then carried to Earth by solar
wind, where it can overwhelm the Earth's
magnetic field. All of this activity
tends to peak about every 11 years or so.
A flurry of particularly bad solar
flares and CMEs can cause real havoc to
our electrical systems, potentially
throwing large parts of the world into
darkness. We've had glimpses of what this
can do to modern technology. In 1989, a

Chinese: 
在1989年，一場比「卡靈頓事件」小得多了的CME
襲擊加拿大魁北克省，
破壞當地的變壓器並使三百多萬居民無電可用
而2012年著實讓我們捏了把冷汗
一場有卡靈頓事件規模的CME可能將襲擊地球
新聞內容:「電力能源在瞬間被抹滅，
燈光、電腦、運輸、醫院...等將完全停擺
學者警告這將會成為前所未有的巨大浩劫。」
結果，CME最後通過地球九天前的位置
但萬一我們遇上了，將需花費數年時間重建
地磁感應電流(簡稱GIC)會同時損毀
數以百計的高壓變電所，
癱瘓我們的電力網
而且靠備用的變壓器恢復是不可能的
我們將花費數個月或數年時間修復並替換
損毀的基礎設施
這種後果，是影響深遠且極具破壞性的

English: 
CME much smaller than the Carrington
Event hit Canada's province of Quebec,
damaging electrical transformers and
leaving 3 million people without
electricity. And, we had a pretty big
scare in 2012, when it looked like a CME on
the scale of the Carrington event might
hit earth. (FOX News Coverage ..."the electric power grid would
be wiped out by the current, lights and
computers, transportation, hospitals all
would go down... the study warns it would
be a disaster far worse than anything we
have seen before") It ended up passing
through Earth's orbit and missing the
Earth by a margin of 9 days. But had it
hit us, we might still be picking up the
pieces years later. Geomagnetically induced
currents could have damaged hundreds of
high-voltage electrical transformers all
at the same, time crippling our
electrical grid. And it's not like we
keep a bunch of spare transformers
stored away somewhere. It would take
months or years to fully repair and
replace damaged infrastructure. And the
consequences of that? Far-reaching and
devastating. The problem is, the cost of

English: 
protecting our electrical infrastructure
from a Carrington level event would run
into the billions. But at least we'll see
the next one coming. Our ability to
monitor the sun's activity is improving
quickly we're now collecting data on
everything from solar wind to sun
oscillations, to changes in the sun's
magnetic field. We will now have some
warning before the next Carrington-level
Event happens. That might give us some
time to prepare, kind of like we would
for a major hurricane. We could
preemptively shut down electrical
systems or even large portions of the
grid. But all this would take serious
coordination between government and
private industry. But there's been some
progress on that too. Countries around the
world are taking the threat more seriously.
There's a bill before US Congress to
further improve solar storm observation
capability and to better coordinate the
response of agencies if one hits. It's
not a matter of if but when the next one
hits. It's been 150 years since the
Carrington Event. Maybe we can take some
comfort in the fact that it might well

Chinese: 
但問題是，為了保護電子設備免遭受於
卡靈頓事件規模CME的影響，
我們需要數億資金
至少，我們能預測下一次的發生
從太陽風到日震（太陽內部振動），到太陽磁場的改變
我們在下次卡靈頓級事件降臨之前會收到警告
或許會有一些時間準備，類似
颶風來襲的前幾天。我們可以事先切斷電力系統
甚至大部份電網。但這會對政府和私人產業
造成嚴重損失。
不過這部份也有些進展。世界很多國家都開始認真應對
美國國會撥出一筆預算，增加太陽風暴的預測能力
並增強其發生後的應對能力
這不是一個會不會，而是何時發生的問題。
卡靈頓事件已經過了150年，或許我們應該放鬆一下

English: 
just be another 150 years until the next
big one hits. That damn CNN...

Chinese: 
或許再過150年才會有另一場大風暴。
（該死CNN每次都嚇我們…… ）
