Yikes! Solar storm that almost hit Earth could have caused chaos

[question everything]

Phew! You may not have known it, but Earth barely missed the "perfect solar storm" that could have smashed into our magnetic field and wreaked havoc with our satellite systems, electronics and power systems, potentially causing trillions of dollars in damage, according to data from NASA’s STEREO-A spacecraft.

On July 22, 2012, STEREO-A spotted what looked like an enormous solar eruption sending out a coronal mass ejection at blazing top speeds of roughly 1,800 miles per second – the fastest ever recorded by the spacecraft. By the time it actually passed STEREO-A a mere 17 hours later, the magnetic cloud was still traveling at 750 miles per second. That’s about three times faster than your typical coronal mass ejection, which runs into Earth at an average speed of about 280 miles per second, according to a study in the journal Nature Communications.

[Updated at 6:28 a.m., March 20: It's a good thing this incredible blast wasn't pointed at us, scientists said. "This record solar wind speed and magnetic field would have generated the most severe geomagnetic storm since the beginning of the space era, if the event had hit the Earth," the study authors wrote."]

This above-average event was the result of a perfect storm in outer space, according to an international team of researchers, led by Ying Liu of China’s National Space Science Center. There was actually not one, but two coronal mass ejections that erupted from the same region of the sun within 10 to 15 minutes of one another that tangled close to the sun and then barreled into space. And while most storms tend to slow down pretty quickly, this one didn’t, because an earlier coronal mass ejection four days before had blazed a path through space and cleared out any obstacles that would have slowed it down.

If the solar onslaught had occurred just nine days earlier, it would have rivaled the 1859 Carrington event, a solar storm that zapped the telegraph system, delivering shocks to telegraph operators, and triggering aurorae -- a typically polar light show in the sky -- as close to the equator as Hawaii and the Caribbean. Today, such a storm would have caused far more damage in our now highly wired world, utterly dependent on electronics. (As further comparison, a much weaker geomagnetic storm in 1989 caused Quebec’s power grid to fail.)

More..

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-solar-storm-near-miss-record-geomagnetic-stereo-sun-20140319,0,2763985.story

[rurallib]

1. looks like a good reason to become a republican

then you won't believe in science and deny everything that science claims. Then if you don't believe it happened, it didn't happen.

[boomer55]

2. Just imagine what will happen to every single nuke plant

When we do get hit.

Not if. But when


Fukushima's and Chernobyl's everywhere.

[kristopher]

3. Lloyd’s Report Highlights Solar Storm Threat as Emerging Risk

Lloyd’s Report Highlights Solar Storm Threat as Emerging Risk
May 23, 2013


“A large solar storm could leave tens of millions of people in North America without electrical power for several months, if not years, potentially costing trillions of dollars,” according to Lloyd’s latest emerging risks report: “Solar Storm Risk to the North American Electric Grid.”

The report, which is being launched at the Electric Infrastructure Security Summit in London, was produced in co-operation with U.S.-based Atmospheric Environmental Research. It notes that while large geomagnetic storms are relatively rare, they “can create a massive surge of current, potentially overloading the electric grid system and damaging expensive, and critical, transformers.”

According to the report, a large solar storm in 1989 triggered the collapse of Quebec’s electrical power grid, leaving six million Canadians without power for nine hours. A smaller storm in 2003 caused blackouts in Sweden as well as damage to transformers in South Africa (transformers at that latitude were previously thought to be immune from such damage).

...The report describes the Carrington Event of 1859, which is widely regarded as the most extreme space weather event on record. Such an event today would affect between 20-40 million people in the U.S. with power cuts lasting from several weeks to one to two years. The economic costs would be “catastrophic,” according to Lloyd’s – estimated at between $0.6 and $2.6 trillion.

Fortunately, Lloyd’s says, a Carrington-level extreme geomagnetic storm is rare ...

http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/international/2013/05/23/293060.htm

Download report: http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/lloyds/reports/emerging%20risk%20reports/solar%20storm%20risk%20to%20the%20north%20american%20electric%20grid.pdf