Solar storms are extremely powerful natural disasters, and they are able to cause a tremendous amount of economic damage. During a typical solar storm, the sun’s surface flares up and massive fireballs are shot into the Earth’s atmosphere. This often results in the harming of many of the electrical waves back down on earth; radio signals, satellite signals, and even cell phone signals can be shorted out from these powerful eruptions on the suns exterior. Of course, this means that a lot of GPS based equipment could very well loose accuracy or even complete satellite connection during one of these storms.
Due to the sun’s relative dormancy, solar storms tend to occur once every 11 years. The last recorded solar storm was in 2001, which means that the next one is expected to occur sometime in the year 2012.
While no solar storm is good, some can definitely be more devastating than others. Take, for example, the Great Solar Storm of 1859, when a massive solar storm burned telegraph wires all across Europe and the US. The incident was referred to as the 1859 Carrington Flare, and it caused every telegraph signal in two different countries to be completely blacked out. In today’s technology-reliant society, one can’t help but wonder what would happen if such a blackout occurred today. It could take months, if not years, to truly recover.
One of the reasons why these solar storms are so powerful is because of the enormous amount of electro-magnetic waves released by the sun, the same type of waves used in nuclear bombs and EMP devices. These electro-magnetic waves short out any electrical device within the area, and they can throw off any satellite or radio signals in that vicinity.
For better or for worse, our society uses this kind of technology in places like banks, communications, hospitals, computers, transportation systems, as well as in an enormous electrical grid that serves billions of people around the world. If this type of solar eruption were to occur, all memory storage on hard drives and databases could be completely whipped clean.
It’s unthinkable to imagine that a storm could completely shake the foundation of our society, especially when considering how completely dependent we are on technology. As the next solar storm approaches, it’s important to remember that any repeat of the Great Solar Storm of 1859 could bring our modernized society to a screeching halt.
