#CME satellite failure risk

[opticflux]

U.S. Solar Storm Readiness Fails Critical Test — Nation at Risk of Blackouts, GPS Collapse, and Satellite Failures

A real solar flare nearly broke global systems. This drill proved the U.S. still isn’t ready. The Warning Shot Was Real — And It Hit The United States just ran a high-level federal emergency drill simulating a catastrophic solar storm. The conclusion? America’s critical infrastructure would be dangerously exposed. While agencies were conducting tabletop simulations in May 2024, the real Sun…

[enterprisewired]

7 Most Powerful Solar Storms in the History of Earth

In May 2024, we witnessed the biggest solar storm of the past 20 years. Many people uploaded their POV of the aurora on social media. However, while the aurora borealis is a beautiful sight, the effects of the solar storms were drastic. Solar Storms (Geo Magnetic Storms) are the motion of accelerated charged particles in the solar environment with high velocities due to the coronal mass ejection (CME). Moving toward Earth at the speed of 3 million miles per hour, these storms can impact us humans significantly. Let’s explore how.

Impact of Solar Storms on the Earth:

As the storms reach the outer atmosphere or space, they might collide with Satellites or humans in space. The energetic protons in the storm could cause alteration or damage to electrical circuits or the biological DNA. At the most extreme solar storm, the passengers and crew of high-flying aircraft could be exposed to radiation risk. Storms could create intense currents in Earth’s magnetosphere and cause the ionosphere and upper thermosphere to heat up. This could create a drag for low-orbiting satellites and harm the power grid. When a solar storm reaches Earth, it interacts with the magnetosphere making it agitated and compressed, which allows energetic solar wind particles to cluster in Polar Regions. 

Very High-energy particles, like those carried by coronal mass ejections, can cause radiation poisoning to humans and mammals. When a coronal mass ejection strikes Earth’s atmosphere it causes a temporary disturbance of the Earth’s magnetic field. Solar storms can throw satellites off course and cause them to fall on Earth’s surface putting many urban centers at risk. Many migrating animals like birds and honey bees are affected by solar storms as they use magneto reception to navigate. Geo-magnetically induced currents are produced in the pipelines due to rapidly fluctuating geomagnetic fields causing multiple problems for the pipeline engineers. Pipeline flow meters can pass wrong information and the corrosion rate of the pipelines can be dramatically increased. 

Solar Flares and its types

There are 5 types of solar flares. Here they are ranked from least to most effective:

A-Class flares – These flares don’t have any noticeable consequences on Earth. 

B-Class flares – These are 10 times more intense than A-Class flares.

C-Class flares – These are 10 times stronger than B-Class flares. They have few noticeable consequences on Earth. 

M-Class flares – These are medium-sized flares. They cause brief radio blackouts that affect Polar Regions.

X-Class flares – These are the biggest. They cause radio blackouts throughout the world. They also cause long-lasting radiation storms in the upper atmosphere. 

7 Most Powerful Solar Storms

1. The Carrington Effect: 1859

It was named the Carrington effect because it was observed by the solar astronomer Richard Carrington. He witnessed the storm through his private observatory telescope and sketched the sun’s sunspots at the time. It is the first and largest documented solar flare. It caused major aurora displays visible to the south as far as the Caribbean. It also caused severe disruptions in global telegraph communications, shocked some telegraph operators, and caused fires due to the discharge from lines ignited telegraph papers.

2. Solar Flare VS. AT&T: 1972

This is a major solar flare that erupted in August 1972. It knocked out long-distance telephone communication across many states including Illinois. NASA stated that this event caused AT&T to redesign its power system for transatlantic cables. 

3. Major Power Failures from Geomagnetic Storm: 1989

Source – Wikipedia

In March 1989, a powerful solar flare caused a geomagnetic storm that set off a major power blackout in Canada, forcing 6 Million people to spend 9 hours without electricity. According to NASA, the flare disrupted electric power transmission from the Hydro Quebec generating Station and even melted some power transformers in New Jersey. Although the flare was pretty strong, it was not nearly the same scale as the Carrington event. 

4. Bastille Day Event: 2000

Bastille Day event has the same name as the French national holiday because it occurred on the same day i.e. July 14, 2000. The event caused some satellites to short-circuit resulting in Radio blackouts. 

5. The Haunting Halloween Storms: 2003

From October till November, the Earth experienced continuous solar flares and coronal mass ejections in its atmosphere. NASA named it The Haunting Halloween Storms. The storms caused airplanes to be rerouted, affected satellite systems, and caused power shortages in Sweden. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) failed due to the solar storm which studies the Sun, its deep core to its outer corona, and solar wind.

6. X-Ray Sun Flare for Xmas: 2006

On Dec 5, a massive X-Class flare was seen ignited on the sun. The solar storm was so powerful that it damaged the solar X-ray imager instrument on the GOES 13 satellite which took its picture. 

7. A Very Expensive Storm: 2022

In February of 2022, the launch of 40 Starlink satellites was carried out but all the satellites got burned in the environment. The solar storm caused the thermosphere to get denser and eventually Starlink satellites couldn’t pull the satellites upward to their designated position. The satellites got pulled towards Earth and ultimately burned by the friction in the atmosphere, totaling a loss of 50 million.

Should we be worried?

While we are physically safe from solar storms, the economic damage can be drastic. Today, space agencies are trying to send astronauts on interplanetary missions. If we want to establish an interplanetary residence, we must learn how to protect ourselves from Solar Storms.

On the other hand, scientists are trying to develop radiation-resistant space suits for astronauts to protect them from radiation. Humans are trying to get to Ceres and Mars for exploration. In the long term, precautionary measures are necessary to prevent any damage from the storms.

[eveningflares-blog]

What If the Biggest Solar Storm on Record Happened Today?

Repeat of 1859 Carrington Event would devastate modern world, experts say.

4 MINUTE READ

BY RICHARD A. LOVETT, FOR

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEWS

PUBLISHED MARCH 4, 2011

On February 14 the sun erupted with the largest solar flare seen in four years—big enough to interfere with radio communications and GPS signals for airplanes on long-distance flights.

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As solar storms go, the Valentine's Day flare was actually modest. But the burst of activity is only the start of the upcoming solar maximum, due to peak in the next couple of years.

"The sun has an activity cycle, much like hurricane season," Tom Bogdan, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado, said earlier this month at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C.

"It's been hibernating for four or five years, not doing much of anything." Now the sun is waking up, and even though the upcoming solar maximum may see a record low in the overall amount of activity, the individual events could be very powerful.

In fact, the biggest solar storm on record happened in 1859, during a solar maximum about the same size as the one we're entering, according to NASA.

That storm has been dubbed the Carrington Event, after British astronomer Richard Carrington, who witnessed the megaflare and was the first to realize the link between activity on the sun and geomagnetic disturbances on Earth.

During the Carrington Event, northern lights were reported as far south as Cuba and Honolulu, while southern lights were seen as far north as Santiago, Chile. (See pictures of auroras generated by the Valentine's Day solar flare.)

The flares were so powerful that "people in the northeastern U.S. could read newspaper print just from the light of the aurora," Daniel Baker, of the University of Colorado's Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, said at a geophysics meeting last December.

In addition, the geomagnetic disturbances were strong enough that U.S. telegraph operators reported sparks leaping from their equipment—some bad enough to set fires, said Ed Cliver, a space physicist at the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory in Bedford, Massachusetts.

In 1859, such reports were mostly curiosities. But if something similar happened today, the world's high-tech infrastructure could grind to a halt.

"What's at stake," the Space Weather Prediction Center's Bogdan said, "are the advanced technologies that underlie virtually every aspect of our lives."

Solar Flare Would Rupture Earth's "Cyber Cocoon"

To begin with, the University of Colorado's Baker said, electrical disturbances as strong as those that took down telegraph machines—"the Internet of the era"—would be far more disruptive. (See "The Sun—Living With a Stormy Star" in National Geographic magazine.)

Solar storms aimed at Earth come in three stages, not all of which occur in any given storm.

First, high-energy sunlight, mostly x-rays and ultraviolet light, ionizes Earth's upper atmosphere, interfering with radio communications. Next comes a radiation storm, potentially dangerous to unprotected astronauts.

Finally comes a coronal mass ejection, or CME, a slower moving cloud of charged particles that can take several days to reach Earth's atmosphere. When a CME hits, the solar particles can interact with Earth's magnetic field to produce powerful electromagnetic fluctuations. (Related: "Magnetic-Shield Cracks Found; Big Solar Storms Expected.")

"We live in a cyber cocoon enveloping the Earth," Baker said. "Imagine what the consequences might be."

Of particular concern are disruptions to global positioning systems (GPS), which have become ubiquitous in cell phones, airplanes, and automobiles, Baker said. A $13 billion business in 2003, the GPS industry is predicted to grow to nearly $1 trillion by 2017.

In addition, Baker said, satellite communications—also essential to many daily activities—would be at risk from solar storms.

"Every time you purchase a gallon of gas with your credit card, that's a satellite transaction," he said.

But the big fear is what might happen to the electrical grid, since power surges caused by solar particles could blow out giant transformers. Such transformers can take a long time to replace, especially if hundreds are destroyed at once, said Baker, who is a co-author of a National Research Council report on solar-storm risks.

The U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory's Cliver agrees: "They don't have a lot of these on the shelf," he said.

The eastern half of the U.S. is particularly vulnerable, because the power infrastructure is highly interconnected, so failures could easily cascade like chains of dominoes.

"Imagine large cities without power for a week, a month, or a year," Baker said. "The losses could be $1 to $2 trillion, and the effects could be felt for years."

Even if the latest solar maximum doesn't bring a Carrington-level event, smaller storms have been known to affect power and communications.

The "Halloween storms" of 2003, for instance, interfered with satellite communications, produced a brief power outage in Sweden, and lighted up the skies with ghostly auroras as far south as Florida and Texas.

(Also see "'Nightmare' Star Flares Dim Odds for Alien Life?")

Buffing Up Space-Weather Predictions

One solution is to rebuild the aging power grid to be less vulnerable to solar disruptions.

Another is better forecasting. Scientists using the new Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft are hoping to get a better understanding of how the sun behaves as it moves deeper into its next maximum and begins generating bigger storms. (See some of SDO's first sun pictures.)

These studies may help scientists predict when and where solar flares might appear and whether a given storm is pointed at Earth.

"Improved predictions will provide more accurate forecasts, so [officials] can take mitigating actions," said Rodney Viereck, a physicist at the Space Weather Prediction Center.

Even now, the center's Bogdan said, the most damaging emissions from big storms travel slowly enough to be detected by sun-watching satellites well before the particles strike Earth. "That gives us [about] 20 hours to determine what actions we need to take," Viereck said.

In a pinch, power companies could protect valuable transformers by taking them offline before the storm strikes. That would produce local blackouts, but they wouldn't last for long.

"The good news is that these storms tend to pass after a couple of hours," Bogdan added.

Meanwhile, scientists are scrambling to learn everything they can about the sun in an effort to produce even longer-range forecasts.

According to Vierick, space-weather predictions have some catching up to do: "We're back where weather forecasters were 50 years ago."