The claim: NASA sent the Parker Solar Probe on a mission to prevent an internet apocalypse
A June 26 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) contains a video titled “This Means We’re About to Experience Internet Blackout!”
Family, I hope you are ready as there will be no internet connection coming soon,” a man says. The video later shows an image of the Parker Solar Probe behind him, with the narrator saying, “This is the probe they sent to try and stop it.
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Our assessment: False
The Parker Solar Probe was launched to study the sun, not to stop an internet apocalypse. While solar winds could theoretically temporarily interfere with telecommunications, NASA has never linked up with the mission to prevent an “internet apocalypse.”
Probe studying the sun
The Parker Solar Probe was launched on August 12, 2018 to study the flow of energy from the sun, the heating of the solar atmosphere and what drives the solar wind, according to NASA spokeswoman Denise Hill. Stopping an internet apocalypse wasn’t one of the missions.
Hill said the claim could be tied to NASA’s recognition for more than a decade that the solar wind, a stream of charged particles from the sun’s outer atmosphere, could potentially disrupt communication signals. The sun goes through an 11-year cycle with periods of low and high solar activity, with the next maximum expected in 2024 or 2025.
The Parker Solar Probe has already addressed one of the big questions it sought to answer, determining the process that creates a fast solar wind that can send charged particles toward Earth in minutes. The authors of a recent paper argue that the information could help predict future solar storms.
However, there is no evidence to show that it would cause long-term catastrophic effects on the internet, Hill said.
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However, fears of communication breakdowns are not unfounded. NASA has warned since at least 2009 that the solar wind coupled with periodic ejections of matter from the sun called coronal mass ejections have the potential to wreak havoc on power grids and induce extreme currents that could disrupt signals traveling on wires. However, he doesn’t call it an “internet apocalypse.”
The term internet apocalypse appears to come from a paper on solar storms presented at a conference in August 2021 that used the term in its title. One of the document’s authors later expressed regret at the attention the document received.
A significant communication breakdown has occurred in the past. In 1859, a huge solar flare unleashed an electromagnetic storm that generated bright auroras in the sky and sent currents through telegraph lines powerful enough to shock operators and start fires.
USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
Our fact-checking sources:
- Denise Hill July 14, Email exchange with USA TODAY
- Washington Post, June 28, Is the Internet Apocalypse Near? Shooting down solar storm science
- University of California-Berkeley June 7, Parker Solar Probe flies into fast solar wind and finds its source
- History.com, updated May 10, A Perfect Solar Superstorm: The 1859 Carrington Event
- Space.com, last updated July 6, 2022, solar wind: what is it and how does it affect the Earth?
- University of California-Irvine, August 2021, Solar Superstorms: Planning for an Internet Apocalypse
- NASA, updated August 31, 2018, 10 things to know about the Parker Solar Probe
- NASA Updated January 5, 2009 NASA-funded study reveals dangers of severe space weather
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