Coronal Mass Ejection

By William L. Truax III

It was a blast from space that would rock the planet to its core. But what about her inhabitants? What would be their outcome? In the not-so-distant future, the human race finds itself trapped in an ever-challenging series of situations. Their last line of defense was gone, the ozone, but now they are dealing with forces of nature and human greed beyond any scale that has ever been known.

Awaiting their children in the distance, Carl and Mary looked on while standing there gazing out over the green hillside. Behind them, their house stood, tall, stained, wooden. Calling their children to them, they fondly remembered what had happened to them and how it was the hardest thing that they ever had to deal with. Their lives as they thought and compared notes, were so terrible, that there were times where they did not want to deal with it, while other memories as they spoke to one another, were the best times of their lives and did not want to think of anything more extraordinary with the exception as being their children's birth.

Will they make it to safety? Will humanity survive?

Only time will tell. In the world where death comes for all, will there be any survivors?

• Language: English
• Publisher: William Truax
• Release date: Jul 10, 2021
• ISBN: 9798215082294

William L. Truax III

William L. Truax III is a disabled veteran; father and author. 

Book preview

Coronal Mass Ejection

By

William L. Truax III

Copyright© William L Truax III 2021

All rights reserved.

For Mom and Dad who painlessly listened to all my rambling as I wrote this book.

Table Of Contents

Part One

Notes

1

2

3

4

5

Part Two

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Part Three

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

Part Four

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

Notes

THIS BOOK IS A WORK of fiction, though some of these events that transpire in the book may happen or rather could happen one day, I write this as a fiction story. All characters are fictional and have no resemblance to anyone dead or alive.

I wrote this book as I was thinking of a series of ten books, with one already available on Amazon called Zen Rising. There and this book as known as Book II has become a mere tribute or rather possibility of an event that may happen. These ten books that I am working on are a possibility and that is all. 

As with the first book, I gave away at some point that it was about the Global Conveyer Belt that had shut down, whereas this book, I give away somewhere that it is a CME: Coronal Mass Ejection. If you do not know what a CME is then allow me to talk about it for a moment...

WHAT IS A CORONAL MASS EJECTION (CME)?

published: Tuesday, February 02, 2021, 16:41 UTC

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun’s corona. They can eject billions of tons of coronal material and carry an embedded magnetic field (frozen in flux) that is stronger than the background solar wind interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) strength. CMEs travel outward from the Sun at speeds ranging from slower than 250 kilometers per second (km/s) to as fast as near 3000 km/s. The fastest Earth-directed CMEs can reach our planet in as little as 15-18 hours. Slower CMEs can take several days to arrive. They expand in size as they propagate away from the Sun and larger CMEs can reach a size comprising nearly a quarter of the space between Earth and the Sun by the time it reaches our planet.

The more explosive CMEs generally begin when highly twisted magnetic field structures (flux ropes) contained in the Sun’s lower corona become too stressed and realign into a less tense configuration – a process called magnetic reconnection. This can result in the sudden release of electromagnetic energy in the form of a solar flare, which typically accompanies the explosive acceleration of plasma away from the Sun – the CME. These types of CMEs usually take place from areas of the Sun with localized fields of strong and stressed magnetic flux, such as active regions associated with sunspot groups. CMEs can also occur from locations were relatively cool and denser plasma is trapped and suspended by magnetic flux extending up to the inner corona - filaments and prominences. When these flux ropes reconfigure, the denser filament or prominence can collapse back to the solar surface and be quietly reabsorbed, or a CME may result. CMEs traveling faster than the background solar wind speed can generate a shock wave. These shock waves can accelerate charged particles ahead of them – causing increased radiation storm potential or intensity.

Important CME parameters used in the analysis are size, speed, and direction. These properties are inferred from orbital satellites’ coronagraph imagery by SWPC forecasters to determine any Earth-impact likelihood. The NASA Solar and Heliosphere Observatory (SOHO) carries a coronagraph – known as the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO). This instrument has two ranges for optical imaging of the Sun’s corona: C2 (covers distance range of 1.5 to 6 solar radii) and C3 (range of 3 to 32 solar radii). The LASCO instrument is currently the primary means used by forecasters to analyze and categorize CMEs; however, another coronagraph is on the NASA STEREO-A spacecraft as an additional source.

Imminent CME arrival is first observed by the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite, located at the L1 orbital area. Sudden increases in density, total interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) strength, and solar wind speed at the DSCOVR spacecraft indicate the arrival of the CME-associated interplanetary shock ahead of the magnetic cloud. This can often provide 15 to 60 minutes advanced warning of shock arrival at Earth – and any possible impulse or sudden storm commencement as registered by Earth-based magnetometers.

Important aspects of an arriving CME and its likelihood for causing more intense geomagnetic storming to include the strength and direction of the IMF beginning with shock arrival, followed by arrival and passage of the plasma cloud and frozen-in-flux magnetic field. More intense levels of geomagnetic storming are favored when the CME enhanced IMF becomes more pronounced and prolonged in a south-directed orientation. Some CMEs show predominantly one direction of the magnetic field during its passage, while most exhibit changing field directions as the CME passes over Earth. Generally, CMEs that impact Earth’s magnetosphere will at some point have an IMF orientation that favors the generation of geomagnetic storming. Geomagnetic storms are classified using a five-level NOAA Space Weather Scale. SWPC forecasters discuss the analysis and geomagnetic storm potential of CMEs in the forecast discussion and predict levels of geomagnetic storming in the 3-day forecast.

What is a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME)? | NOAA / NWS Space Weather Prediction Center

Under these circumstances, and the possibility that it may happen, I decided as a warning of what may happen to the world as well as to show what may happen to us as a society. Remember that these books that I am writing, and publishing are fictional book series and could be a warning call to all of us or just something for fun. As it stands by NOAA, we are overdue for a major Coronal Storm to affect our lives by like a hundred years. Though the stormy atmosphere of the sun back in 2012 was rough, it was nothing compared to the way it acted in the mid to late 1800s where the Carrington Event occurred and knocked out all the telegraph systems as well as doing some massive damage.

Anyway, it is a tale of survival and hope. Please take your time and enjoy it. Maybe you can relate to someone in here, maybe not, but it may change something that you do not notice at first.

-William L. Truax III

Part one:

Introduction

Or

The Angels Cometh

0.1.

Awaiting their children in the distance, Carl and Mary looked on while standing there gazing out over the green hillside. Behind them, their house stood, tall, stained, wooden. Calling their children to them, they fondly remembered what had happened to them and how it was the hardest thing that they ever had to deal with. Their lives as they thought and compared notes, were so terrible, that there were times where they did not want to deal with it, while other memories as they spoke to one another, were the best times of their lives and did not want to think of anything more extraordinary with the exception as being their children’s birth.

Their dog began to bark crazily, there seemed to be something near the kids that alerted the dog and made him freak out. Running downhill to their two children, they stumbled and rolled some before bouncing back up onto their feet and continuing the run. 

The flowers, as they were failing to admire while running toward their children and the harsh barking of the dog, were in full bloom and the world was looking better than it was so long ago. The admiring looks on their children’s faces told them everything, they were fine for one, and on the other, they were playing with their dog a little too hard.

The times that they were considering would one day, as they hoped, make a great tale and as they walked their children back up the hill, Carl had the idea to write them down.

We should write them hon, what do you think? his voice kind and sweet compared to her eldest, whose voice was wavering due to puberty.

Yeah, that sounds like a great idea.

When we get home, that’s the first thing we should do.

Sounds good to me.

What story? asked their ten-year-old daughter and son.

The story on how we came to be as a world, Mary said casually as she grabbed a hold of Carl’s hand.

We will read it to you when it is done, Carl stated afterward.

0.2

Marching in line, they all safely made it back to the house. Looking at it now, Carl and Mary were both awes struck and feared that it would never last. It was taller than any of the trees nearby, wooden, and was hand-carved as well as hand-built to boot. The outside had a deck and all the wood all over and throughout were stained with a wood stain that their friend and father had made. Some chairs were too handcrafted and looked perfect against the backdrop of the house. There too was a grill outside on the porch where they cooked their meat and mostly ate everything. There was not a scrap of the house that was not hand-carved or crafted in any way.

Catching up to the kids, Carl released Mary’s hand and they went their separate ways. Carl gazed upon the staircase that rose in the center of the walkway right by the door. The door did not squeak yet, but he figured it would soon. He tapped on the wooden rails as he normally had done, then thought about the life he had growing up and how it was different than what he was providing to his children.

The interior as Carl walked into his study, was full of books, books of all types and sizes. He found, along the way as he grew up, books of learning (which mostly filled his home) and books to help someone learn to read. He pulled one from the shelf, it was pink and had a pig on it, opened it and giggled, then remembered how he got his daughter to read was by the help of the book that he held.

Turning to write on his desk, Carl picked up a pencil that he found along with a few others in the drawer and pulled the wooden stool up under him, and sat to write. What Carl wrote at that time was nothing major, just a to-do list on the house. Things like gather firewood, make a fire poker and the list went on like that. 

He sat back on the wooden stool thinking it was a regular chair that they kept in the dining room or outside on the patio and nearly fell over, but a quick save made him rock forward. He then wrote: Make Study Chair.

In the morning Carl and Mary awoke to the sounds of laughter and went downstairs to see the mess the kids were making. But, upon arriving down there, they found their neighbors had entered the house and were benching the kids. Carl walked over to the man that was benching his boy and said good morning to him. The man placed the child down and rose to his feet. Standing five foot ten, he was an inch taller than Carl and arms the size of pythons, he dared not to ever try to intimidate. 

Morning Carl, Mary. The kids let us in.

I see that. What brings you out here Mike?

We were considering inviting you four to a cookout. I recently caught a boar and wanted to share it.

Great! You can count on us. Do we need to bring anything?

Nope.

When?

This afternoon, just come back with me.

Let us get dressed. Mary butted in on the conversation which for the most part forgot about her.

.03

This world stood on the dawning of a new beginning and as the four grownups thought while discussing their children and habits they had broken. There was a sense of new life afoot, and they were happy to be part of it. Just sitting there reminded them of their parents and what little they could remember or knew of, to begin with. There were about ten hundred people in the nearby area and there was enough land for everyone to never have to meet, but meet they did, cause humans as they learned again, we are a social species and did not often decline a good meal.

In this meal, there were more than the four of them, it was them, five kids, two dogs, and a cat that acted more like one of the dogs.

The night grew on top of them in a matter of seconds and before they realized it, Mike was lighting the torches around his home. Paula, who had risen from her seat, was making a place for them all to sleep in their living room. She loved those kids of Carl’s, doted on them often as their families were close and regularly seen each other. This night, however, as the full moon rose above the trees, Paula felt an urge to tell a horror story to keep the kids awake, a way to mess with Carl and Mary.

A young lady, as Paula began reciting a tale from her younger days that she remembered, "was driving home after a long vacation. Sometime after midnight, a very heavy storm begins as she notices she is almost out of gas. She sees a sign for a gas station and convenience store and pulls off the interstate to fill her tank. The place is open, but deserted, run-down, and old. She almost drives on but concerned she might run out of gas, decides to stop, and just get gas. As she pulls in, a tall man with a badly scarred face comes running through the rain. He pumps her gas, and the girl rolls her window down just enough to hand him her credit card. He grabs it and runs back inside.

"The scarred man comes back, tells her she will have to come inside, because her card was denied, and hurries back inside without allowing her to respond. She does not want to go inside and considers driving off without paying. However, she decides to go in very quickly, take care of the bill, and leave as soon as possible.

"When she gets inside, the man grabs her arm and tries to talk to her. His voice is rough and difficult to understand, and she thinks he may have had his voice damaged in whatever accident scarred his face. The man gets increasingly excited, and the young girl becomes more frantic. She finally wrests herself from his grip and runs back to her car, leaving the station as quickly as possible. She sees the old man through her back window yelling and gesturing her to come back, but she keeps driving.

She turns on the radio to help her relax and sees something move behind her. She looks in the rear-view mirror, just as a man appears in the back seat holding an ax. That is the last thing she sees in this life. The scarred man at the gas station had been trying to warn her.

The children were full of life and questions as they repeatedly asked her. She was bombarded and answered as many as possible including those regarding when she and Mike were to marry and have kids of their own.

That’s when you know that you’re married, you have babies.

Paula laughed and said, That’s not the only way you two, but you need to go to sleep before the boogeyman gets you.

Night!

Good night my happy brats, Mary said poking her head in the door.

Night Mom.

The shooting of an owl reminded them that they and nature remained close in a relationship and for what mankind once had so long ago, was not going to resurface anytime soon. It has been fifteen years since then and what a wild ride it was. They all thought fondly on those who protected them, and to those who were or became lost in the madness of the times.

.04

The people that remained all believed that they were immune to whatever the planet could throw at them. They had all been through so much that nothing was able to stop them from becoming more than pebbles in the Earthen soil, but someone who stands in the light. These people were resilient. These people knew how to survive, as so they thought, but the one thing they all missed, gathering in more than one family at a time.

Dawn approached Carl and Mary as well as with Mike and Paula who had been talking all night outside by the campfire. They figured that they had to find more people to include