The emergence of an imminent solar storm has brought with it the remote possibility that within the next decade, people on Earth could be without Internet access for months.
If the Internet fails on such a large scale, the consequences could be devastating causing billions of dollars of losses per day to the US economy and hampering the production and supply chains of essential materials such as food and medicines. But NASA scientists are trying to prevent such a catastrophe by launching a probe years ago that will allow them to study and prepare for how a solar storm could affect the planet’s infrastructure.
So how likely is it that humanity will face what many have called the “Internet apocalypse?”
Here’s what we know:
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Solar flares lead to menacing solar storms
The solar wind is created by the outward expansion of charged particles from the Sun’s corona into the outer atmosphere, according to NASA. While it is much less dense than the wind on Earth, it is much faster, typically blowing at speeds of one to two million miles per hour.
Because of the winds that solar storms generate near the sun, atmospheric impacts can potentially be felt on Earth. Solar flares and coronal mass ejections drive storms, which release solar particles and electromagnetic radiation towards our planet, according to NASA.
As the frequency of coronal mass ejections increases at the peak of its 11-year cycle, which NASA estimates is expected to occur in 2025, electromagnetic activity on the sun peaks. What the so-called “solar maximum” means for us Earthlings is that the risk of disruption to our planet increases.
The activity has the potential to cause geometric storms, which could disrupt satellite signals, radio communications, the Internet and power grids, causing a technological collapse.
There is a small chance that the solar storm could trigger an outage
The chances of a storm triggering a catastrophic Internet outage are slim, according to a study two years ago. But the threat is still nothing to scoff at.
A 2021 study published by Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, a computer science expert at the University of California, Irvine, concluded that there is a 1.6% to 12% chance that a prolonged internet outage could occur within the next decade due to a solar storm.
The study goes on to estimate that a failure of that magnitude could cost the US economy, where the risk of internet outage is higher than in Asia, up to $7 billion a day.
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This type of disruption is not without precedent
A destructive solar storm in 1989 caused power outages across Quebec for 12 hours, according to NASA, plunging millions of Canadians into darkness and closing schools and businesses.
But it was in 1859 that the most intense solar storm on record, the Carrington Event, wreaked its havoc. The storm started fires at telegraph stations and prevented messages from being sent.
A NASA probe could be the key to avoiding internet failure
Years ago, the space agency released the Parker Solar Probe in an effort to avert what the Weather Channel called the “Internet apocalypse” in a June report.
The probe was launched in 2018 on a journey that in 2021 took it close to the sun’s surface, entering its upper atmosphere, the corona, where the solar wind is generated, according to NASA. It was there that the probe endured harsh conditions to gather vital information about the sun, which NASA researchers say has led to new insights into how solar winds reach supersonic speeds and impact the wider space weather system.
“Just as the moon landing allowed scientists to understand how it formed, touching the same stuff the sun is made of will help scientists discover critical information about our nearest star and its influence on the solar system.” the agency said in a statement. at the moment.
Because of the spacecraft’s mission, NASA also learned earlier this year that the solar wind may be largely powered by small-scale jets of energy, known as jetlets, at the base of the corona.
The findings make it much easier to explain how the solar wind is accelerated and heated, said Craig DeForest, a solar physicist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, in the NASA report. We’re not done with the puzzle yet, but this is an important step towards understanding a central mystery of solar physics.
More recently, NASA created a new computer model that combines artificial intelligence and satellite data that “could sound the alarm about dangerous space weather” like a cosmic tornado siren. The new technology can predict where an impending solar storm will hit Earth with 30 minutes’ notice, vital minutes that could be the time needed to prepare for and prevent severe impacts to power grids and other critical infrastructure.
An international team of researchers from the Frontier Development Lab, a public-private partnership that includes NASA, the US Geological Survey and the US Department of Energy, has used artificial intelligence to search for connections between the solar wind and geomagnetic disruptions wreaking havoc on technology. An AI method called deep learning allows researchers to train computers to recognize patterns based on previous examples.
“One day, solar storm sirens could sound an alarm at power plants and satellite control centers around the world,” NASA researchers predict, “just as tornado sirens wail before Earth’s threatening weather in cities and towns throughout America”.
Eric Lagatta covers the latest news and trends for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @EricLagatta.
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