And now science is providing ways to reduce the negative effects of this disaster.
The disaster we want to talk about here is the solar storm.
In general, solar storms are bursts of energy, occurring at a fairly frequent density, but often we don’t even notice it. Or, perhaps, burgeoning storms can cause radio interference, causing satellite disruptions.
However, the scientific community has never underestimated these storms. Previously, many researchers had warned that one day a giant solar storm would appear, causing enormous damage to the Earth. The worst consequence is the collapse of the global electricity grid and the severe damage to the technological system.
This is not without precedent. In 1859, a giant solar magnetic storm – named Carrington – swept across the Earth, disrupting communication networks across the Earth.
Fortunately, the technology was not yet developed, but if a similar storm appeared today, disaster would have occurred.
“If Carrington really happens now, the global power system will collapse, global supply chains and satellite communications will be seriously compromised.” – quotes a new study from the Center for Space Physics at Harvard and Smithsonian universities.
“The global economy can lose up to $ 10 trillion, and a full recovery will take a few years.”
To make it easy to imagine, the $ 10 billion figure is three times the US national budget in 2016, so it’s a huge loss. And according to calculations, there is about a 10% chance that the disaster will occur within the next century.
And if you look further, over the next 150 years an even greater catastrophe could occur, with a loss of up to $ 20 trillion. The reason is also because as science develops, technology increases, the damage caused by the magnetic storm will also increase stronger. Worse yet, we have no way to prevent this event from happening.
Thus, scientists are proposing ways to reduce the damage, including building a “shield” that deflects the solar magnetic field, away from our planet.
This shield should be composed of 100,000 tons of copper cores, located at a distance of 329,000 km from Earth.
The cost of building this shield certainly isn’t cheap, but it certainly doesn’t cost as much as having the Sunstorm sweeping straight over our Earth.
“The cost of transporting an object weighing 100,000 tonnes into space is expected to be around $ 100 billion, or $ 1,000 / kg,” said Avi Loeb, author of the study.
