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We may appreciate the colorful auroras, but the same solar storm energy may one day create what one researcher calls the "Internet Apocalypse."Professor Peter Becker of George Mason University, who recently became the principal investigator of a joint project with the U.S. Navy, said:"The internet matured during a relatively quiet period when the sun was relatively quiet, but now it is entering a more active period。"The research laboratory has created an early warning system.
"For the first time in human history, there is an intersection between growing solar activity, our growing technological dependence, and our global economic interconnectedness via the Internet," he explained. Power grids, satellites, underground copper-clad fiber optic cables, navigation and GPS systems, radio transmitters, and communications equipment were all susceptible to the large solar storms triggered by the so-called Carrington event in 1859. At that time, the powerful Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) hit the Earth directly and the Northern Lights reached Colombia.
"It had a huge impact on the telegraph system, and sparks flew on the telegraph line," Becker recalled. “Some of the operators were electrocuted because the cables were at high voltage, which was not even intentional, but the change in the magnetic field became so strong that it almost turned into a power generation system and passed these currents through the telegraph cables. ”
However, in comparison, durable telegraph cables are stronger and thicker than today's fragile electronic devices. "The electronics of the internet are very fragile and can be down for weeks or months in terms of the time it takes to fix all the infrastructure, all the electronic switches, all the electronics, the servers. All this can be destroyed in a matter of seconds. It's not just a matter of communication. It is clear that the global economy will fail," the professor is convinced.
Rings and ice cores provide evidence of stronger superstorms in the past. For example, about 14,300 years ago, Earth was hit by a solar flare that is believed to be hundreds of times more powerful than a Carrington flare.
The sun is constantly changing. About every 11 years, our star moves from a quiet period known as the solar minimum to a peak of solar activity known as the solar maximum, when black sunspots obscure the Sun and powerful solar storms often occur. The star then returns to the solar minimum before the start of the next solar cycle. The current solar cycle is 25 days, which officially began in early 2019. Subsequently, a panel of experts commissioned by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the International Space Environment Service (ISES)**solar cycle 25 will likely peak sometime in 2025 and will not be as impressive as the average cycle, like its predecessor, solar cycle 24.
A solar flare on March 3, 2023.
However, other scientists were quick to become convinced that the sun did not reach the panel's ** because the solar activity increased faster than expected. On October 25 last year, the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) released the 25th solar cycleRevision**and acknowledged that the group's original 2019** was no longer "to private space exploration and satellite communications companies, among others."SWPC is reliable enough for customers."。The new update says:"Solar activity will be more thanInitially, the increase is faster and reaches higher levels", and the solar maximum is likely to begin between January and October next year.
In light of this situation, Becker and his team received more than $13 million in federal grants to conduct next-generation data mining, analysis, and scientific modeling, among other efforts, to create an early warning system to mitigate large solar storms and find solutions to avoid"Internet Armageddon".
According to scientists, the flare reaches Earth within 8 minutes. This is a sign that the magnetic field disruption may begin within 18 to 24 hours. "If we get a warning, every minute counts because we can put the satellite in safe mode. We can disconnect transformers from the network so they don't burn out," Becker assured. Therefore, there are a few things that can be done to alleviate this problem. In the long run, we are talking about strengthening the Internet. Of course, this is an economic issue because it is like an insurance policy. You may never need it, but really strengthening the system is necessary and will cost billions of dollars. ”
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