Intense Solar Eruption Threatens Earth With Geomagnetic Storm, Power Outages, GPS Disruptions

A very intense solar eruption occurred on the surface of the Sun just after midnight last night, and the CNRS Le journal bulletin says that in the coming days solar winds could blow at speeds higher than normal toward Earth.

“There are more opportunities to access space than ever, thanks to a bevy of commercial rockets, some with reusable boosters, led by SpaceX’s workhorse Falcon 9”

Ars Technica

The same bulletin warns that a massive geomagnetic storm is expected in the Northern Hemisphere, and it urges viewers to back up their computer data as a precaution.

Ars Technica

It links solar activity to technological disruption by noting that such phenomena can cause power outages, degrade or interrupt GPS navigation and radio and data transmissions, and damage or destroy satellites.

The article grounds the risk in past events, saying that on September 1, 1859, two enormous solar eruptions observed by English astronomer Richard Carrington led to the destruction of 5% of Earth's atmospheric ozone and severely disrupted telegraph-based telecommunications in North America and Europe.

It adds that on March 15, 1989, another such solar storm caused a blackout in Montreal, Quebec, after power surges on the grid were caused by the entry of large quantities of charged particles into Earth’s ionosphere.

The CNRS Le journal bulletin says scientists can detect the onset of these storms early enough and then assess the risk that an eruption will occur on its surface.

It describes how NASA's STEREO-1 and STEREO-2 probes, placed on the far side of the Sun, complement the Sun activity monitoring system and allow researchers to assess the risk up to 27 days in advance.

CNRS Le journal

The article also points to instruments such as NASA's ACE satellites and ESA-NASA's SOHO or the Orfées2 facility at the Nançay Radio Astronomy Station to follow the movement of plasma clouds from coronal mass ejections.

It says these clouds take, on average, two and a half days to reach Earth and could one day be used to issue alerts to both operators and private individuals.

On the forecasting science side, it reports that researchers published in Nature showed a characteristic, rope-like magnetic structure gradually appears in the days preceding the eruption, paving the way for an effective method of eruption forecasting.

The CNRS Le journal bulletin frames the stakes for modern societies by saying that in increasingly connected societies, dependent on communications and power networks, the damage would likely be substantial if events like the 1859 Carrington storm recurred.

“All space infrastructure, from its design, faces the same unforgiving physical constraint: volume”

Journal du Geek

It cites a 2009 report by the US National Academy of Sciences estimating that damages from a storm comparable to the 1859 Carrington event would exceed $6 trillion in the United States alone.

The article then turns from forecasting to institutional responses, noting that the broadcasting of such bulletins may someday become the television norm, just as weather forecasts or Bison Futé traffic bulletins are.

Separately, it emphasizes that space weather can also affect biological and technological systems in real time or by anticipation, as part of the discipline of space weather described by Jean Lilensten.

Finally, it ties the need for preparedness to the Sun’s “moods,” explaining that eruptions during high-activity periods can generate extra radiation in the visible, ultraviolet, X, and radio bands and may even lead to the emission of high-energy particles.