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Rare Solar ‘Superstorm’ Could Ruin the Earth’s Internet

The internet detox that we CAN’T say no to.

Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/ Flickr

Studies say that a rare solar storm could cause a worldwide internet blackout, lasting weeks, or even months.  University of California researcher, Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, warns that while these ‘superstorms’ are rare, appearing once a century, one could seriously damage Earth’s internet infrastructure.  

Scientists approximate the chances of extreme space weather in the next decade to be between 1.6 to 12%.  However, Jyothi cautions that the Sun will become more active in the near future, and our infrastructure is not prepared.  We would only have a 13-hour period to prepare for a severe solar storm – or ‘Coronal Mass Ejection’ (CME). 

These storms are caused by electromagnetic particles, that the Sun constantly sends towards the Earth, in the form of solar winds.  The Earth’s magnetic field usually serves as protection, redirecting the particles to its poles, but once a century the solar winds develop into storms, and have a much greater impact.

There have been only two instances of solar storms across history, the strongest being the ‘Carrington event’ in 1859.  While then, technological impact was scarce, with some reports of sparks leaping from telegraph equipment, today it could be devastating.  Unlike in the 1800s, today the world has modern electric grids and a much larger dependence on the internet.  According to Jyothi, as quoted by Wired,

“Our infrastructure is not prepared for a large-scale solar event. We have very limited understanding of what the extent of the damage would be.”

1/ A global Internet outage lasting weeks! Can that happen?

My paper “Solar Superstorms: Planning for an Internet Apocalypse” at #SIGCOMM’21 takes the first look at an important problem that the networking community had been overlooking until now: https://t.co/GROp6hf97c — Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi (@sangeetha_a_j) July 29, 2021

Jyothi’s research pointed out that the main casualty of a Coronal Mass Ejection would not be regional internet infrastructure, as solar storms don’t impact optical fiber. However, damage to long undersea cables could cause internet outages across countries, causing mass loss of connectivity. 

The lack of knowledge concerning the extent of the impact of solar storms on the earth is worrying.  Jyothi states,

“We have more understanding of how these storms would impact power systems, but that’s all on land. In the ocean it’s even more difficult to predict.” 

Hopefully, with more research and preparation, we will be ready for Jyothi’s ‘internet apocalypse’.

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