Solar Superstorm Could ‘Wipe Out the Internet’ for Weeks or Months, Scientist Says

Professor Peter Becker is working with a team whose goal is to create an early warning system for dangerous solar activity that could damage critical technology.

We may marvel at the Northern Lights, but that same solar storm energy could one day create what one researcher described as an "internet apocalypse."

"The internet has come of age during a time when the sun has been relatively quiet, and now it's entering a more active time," said Professor Peter Becker of George Mason University. "It's the first time in human history that there's been an intersection of increased solar activity with our dependence on the internet and our global economic dependence on the internet."

Becker is the lead investigator on a project with the school and the Naval Research Laboratory to create an early warning system.

"There have been a lot of (solar) flares," Becker said. "Flares are when the sun brightens, and we see the radiation, and that's kind of the muzzle flash. And then the cannon shot is the coronal mass ejection (CME). So, we can see the flash, but then the coronal mass ejection can go off in some random direction in space, but we can tell when they're actually going to head towards Earth. And that gives us about 18 hours of warning, maybe 24 hours of warning, before those particles actually get to Earth and start messing with Earth's magnetic field."

Large blobs of plasma, or superheated matter, fly through space in a CME. A percentage hit the Earth, which distorts our planet's magnetic field. That third prong on the electric plug, which usually gives excess electrical charges a safe place to go, becomes "like a big electrical circuit."

It has happened before

It has happened before. Becker points to the Carrington Event in 1859. That was the last time a CME reached Earth.

"It actually took out the telegraph system, sparks were literally flying off the telegraph lines," Becker said. "Some operators got electrocuted because the wires ended up carrying high voltage, which they were never supposed to do, but the magnetic field variations became so strong it almost became a generator system and drove these currents down telegraph wires."

The heavy-duty wires of the telegraph were robust compared to the fragile electronics of today, he said.

🔗Source: Fox Weather

Substack | Twitter | Minds

📡 Follow:
@G3News