Understanding Just How Big Solar Flares Can Get

upstart writes:

Understanding just how big solar flares can get:

Flares that are powerful enough to disrupt our power grid probably occur, on average, a few times a century, Love says. "Looking at 1859 kind of helps put it in perspective, because what's happened in the space-age era, since 1957, has been more modest." The Sun hasn't aimed a Carrington-like flare at us in quite a while. A repeat of 1859 in the 21st century could be disastrous.

Humanity is far more technologically dependent than it was in 1859. A Carrington-like event today could wreak havoc on power grids, satellites and wireless communication. In 1972, a solar flare knocked out long-distance telephone lines in Illinois, for example. In 1989, a flare blacked out most of Quebec province, cutting power to roughly 6 million people for up to nine hours. In 2005, a solar storm disrupted GPS satellites for 10 minutes.

The best prevention is prediction. Knowing that a coronal mass ejection is on its way could give operators time to safely reconfigure or shut down equipment to prevent it from being destroyed.

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