Earth's close call with a solar super storm
BY ALEX GREEN
ASTRONOMY NOW
Posted: 6 APRIL 2014
On 23 July 2012 the Sun launched a magnetic attack that only narrowly missed Earth by nine days -- a relatively close and terrifying call.
The magnetic storm sent by the Sun came from a succession of coronal mass ejections that propelled disastrous amounts of magnetised plasma through Earth's orbit. Had this solar super storm hit Earth, it would have produced the most severe geomagnetic storm since the nineteenth century.
The storm would have disrupted electrical power grids, radio communications, satellite navigation and spacecraft operations and, as estimated by the Space Study Board of the United States, the impact of such a storm on technological grounds alone could have had a worldwide cost of a trillion dollars, with a recovery time up to a decade.
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Earth's close call with a solar super storm
It is only a matter of time before one of these hits earth. Somehow I think it would be better sooner than later. It is thought we have almost no chance of it not happening within 300 years. However, by then it might be so catastrophic in it's effects that technological civilization might end temporarily or permanently.
If you imagine life in developed nations 300 years from now it is easy to think of self driving cars, planes, ships( almost anything). But, if all that suddenly ended for at least the part of earth facing the sun when the solar storm hit it might cost a whole lot more than 1 trillion dollars then and human technology and society might never recover because of it's state then. Because a solar storm of this size might suddenly kill everyone driving in a ship, plane, or car with magnetic memory when it all suddenly stops working and all you have left is things stored on non-magnetic memory like Cds and DVDs.
Also, the 1859 storm that they are talking about was one in which you could read all night long anywhere on earth outside because the aurora borealis was visible everywhere on earth all night long.
Solar storm of 1859 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_storm_of_1859The solar storm of 1859, also known as the Carrington Event, was a powerful geomagnetic solar storm in 1859 during solar cycle 10. A solar flare or coronal ...
Wikipedia
A Perfect Solar Superstorm: The 1859 Carrington Event — History in ...
www.history.com/.../a-perfect-solar-superst...Mar 14, 2012 - The Carrington Event On the morning of September 1, 1859, amateur astrologer Richard Carrington ascended into the private observatory ...
The History ChannelWhat If the Biggest Solar Storm on Record Happened Today?
news.nationalgeographic.com/.../110302-solar-flare...Mar 2, 2011 - If this solar cycle produces a flare like the 1859 Carrington Event, we may face trillions in damages and year-long blackouts, experts say.
National GeographicThe Carrington Event (2013) - IMDb
www.imdb.com/title/tt2247254/
Internet Movie DatabaseRating: 7.5/10 - 55 votesNews of a massive solar flare goes viral. Soon after, the power is out. Phone's dead. Water taps are dry. Radio is static. Days pass with no news, just people
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