Poison Pen
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We all know that major storms can wreak havoc, flooding cities and decimating infrastructure. But there’s an even bigger worry than wind and rain: space weather. If a massive solar storm hit us, our technology would be wiped out. The entire planet could go dark.
“We’re much more reliant on technology these days that is vulnerable to space weather than we were in the past,” said Thomas Berger, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He told Gizmodo, “If we were hit by an extreme event today, it’d be very difficult to respond.”
“Solar storm” is a generic term used to describe a bunch of stuff the Sun hurls our way, including x-rays, charged particles, and magnetized plasma. A massive solar storm hasn’t hit the Earth since the mid-19th century, but space weather scientists are very worried about the possibility of another.
Scientists Fear Massive Solar Storm Could Hit Earth - Patriot Rising
These are what is often termed Coronal Mass Ejection.
NASA/Marshall Solar Physics
There have been many of these. The 1859 Solar Storm:
Solar storm of 1859 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Or some may remember the near miss we had in July 2012.