LONDON – The Earth’s energy grids could be sent into meltdown with the onset of a solar storm in 2025 because of solar storms that can inflict untold chaos on Earth.
Scientists have long warned about the potential negative consequences of such storms, perhaps the biggest being what has been coined as an “internet apocalypse” which could happen.
But what exactly is an internet apocalypse? It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but the threat is very real.
Put simply, when a solar storm occurs, magnetic fields rip through the Earth’s atmosphere and send current surging through manmade infrastructure.
The bursts, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), can travel up to 11,000,000 kilometres per hour. The Sun fires them off towards the Earth as many as 20 times per week, depending on where it is in its 11-year activity cycle.
No one in living memory has experienced such a blast. A near miss came in 2012, and the only event before that happened in 1859, well before humans became reliant on electricity.
If a CME on a similar scale struck the Earth today as it did back then, electronics in orbiting satellites would be seriously damaged, disrupting navigation and communications systems, and crucially the GPS time synchronisation that the internet relies on to work.
The repercussions would be grave. Without power and the internet, society would grind to a halt.
This story appeared in The Express
