A solar ‘super-storm’ that gives a 30-minute warning
They cause devastation, occur every 150 years - and the last one was
in 1859
A solar “superstorm” could knock out Earth's communications
satellites, cause dangerous power surges in the national grid and
disrupt crucial navigation aids and aircraft avionics, a major report
has found.
It is inevitable that an extreme solar storm - caused by the Sun
ejecting billions of tonnes of highly-energetic matter travelling at a
million miles an hour - will hit the Earth at some time in the near
future, but it is impossible to predict more than about 30 minutes
before it actually happens, a team of engineers has warned.
Solar super-storms are estimated to occur once every 100 or 200
years, with the last one hitting the Earth in 1859.
Although none has occurred in the space age, we are far more
vulnerable now than a century ago because of the ubiquity of modern
electronics, they said. “The general consensus is that a solar
super-storm is inevitable, a matter not of ‘if’ but ‘when?’,” says a
report into extreme space weather by a group of experts at the Royal
Academy of Engineering in London.
In the past half century, there have been a number of “near misses”
when an explosive “coronal mass ejection” of energetic matter from the
Sun has been flung into space, narrowly bypassing the Earth. In 1989 a
relatively minor solar storm knocked out several key electrical
transformers in the Canadian national grid, causing major power
blackouts.Similar solar storms significantly increased atmospheric
radiation levels in 1956, 1972, 1989 and 2003, the experts
found.Professor Paul Cannon, who chaired the academy's working group on
solar storms, said that the Government should set up a space weather
board to oversee measures aimed at minimising the impact of solar
storms.
“A solar super-storm will be a challenge but not cataclysmic. The two
challenges for government are the wide spectrum of technologies affected
today and the emergence of unexpected vulnerabilities as technology
evolves,” he said.“Our message is, ‘Don't panic, but do prepare'.
A solar super-storm will happen one day and we need to be ready for
it.“Many steps have already been taken to minimise the impact of solar
storms on current technology… We anticipate that the UK can further
minimise the impact,” he said.
Minor solar storms hit the Earth on a regular basis, but these are
far less powerful than the 1859 event named after the British astronomer
Richard Carrington, which was the last true solar super-storm.
A similar event today would put severe strain the electricity grid,
where transformers are particular vulnerable to power surges, as well as
degrading the performance of satellites, GPS navigation, aviation and
possibly the mobile phone network, particularly the new 4G network,
which relies on GPS satellites for timing information.
“Satellites are certainly in the front line of a super-storm.
They are part of our infrastructure and we have concerns about their
survival in a solar super-storm,” said Keith Ryden, a space engineer at
Surrey University.
- The Independent
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