Solar Flares Could Catastrophe for Earth:Story Public

Solar Flares Could Catastrophe for Earth

Power lines and transformers fry across the nation. Communication satellites are knocked out, the GPS network no longer works, and even the space station is sucked into Earth’s gravity well. Americans are forced to go months without power, without water systems, without television or cell phones or other forms of communication. You bet, but the culprit isn’t terrorists or hurricanes or a meteorite; it’s our old friend, the sun.
Scientists are gathered this week to discuss a relatively underappreciated threat to our well-being, the impact a huge solar flare (also known as a solar mass ejection (SME) or solar electromagnetic pulse (EMP)) directed at Earth could wreak upon our modern technology.
Called the Carrington Event, this CME knocked out telegraph lines across the country and the Northern Lights were seen as far south as Cuba. A similar event only a third of this magnitude knocked out the Quebec electrical system for nine hours in 1989.
Today, our society is networked by the power grid, satellites and phone lines, all vulnerable to the impact of a large electromagnetic storm. Hesse said that, “In all likelihood the space radiation associated with that event would knock out a large amount of our satellite infrastructure. We can’t stop such an event, but Hesse and others are working toward gaining the ability to predict such events early enough that networks can be shut down and minimize damage. Sunspot activity waxes and wanes on the sun in a 11-year cycle, and we are approaching the peak of sunspot activity, probably reaching it in 2013, according to Hesse. He said that there is some evidence that large CME events happen more frequently on the declining side of the peak.
This doesn’t mean that you should curse the sun or build your own urban windmill just at the prospect of another Carrington Event.
An enormous solar flare expected to hit Britain could blow out the national grid leaving the entire country without electricity, scientists have warned.
The government's chief scientist, Sir John Beddington, has warned Mr Huhne that the massive blast of energy from the sun could also affect Britain's defence systems.
A solar flare in 1859, the first ever recorded, hit telegraph wires across the world with such force that telegraph paper was set on fire.
When solar particles come into contact with the earth's atmosphere they produce an electromagnetic storm which creates massive amounts of radiation.
The Sun roared out a huge solar flare yesterday. For centuries, solar flares have been responsible for a multitude of earth-bound calamities, from blackouts to disrupted communications to strange lights in the sky. In 1859, the biggest flare on record hit, creating auroras worldwide and interrupting telegraph service for weeks. Most solar flares will only cause minor problems with satellites and power grids, but there's always a chance that a monster like the one from 1859 could hit.
Typically, this mass hits the earth about one to three days after the initial flare. Hesse estimates about one in ten flare ejections impact the earth. The ejection from yesterday's flare will apparently miss.
For regular people, that could mean no GPS, no satellite TV or radio, and disrupted communications for anything that relies on satellites as part of its network. "Satellites can get irradiated," Hesse explains. GPS can be substantially affected. The interaction between the corona ejection and the earth's atmosphere and magnetic field is how solar flares affect the power grid. Earth's atmosphere and magnetic field shield the surface from any direct effects of a solar flare.