WORLD-WIDE POWER OUTAGE: Is a massive solar flare in our near future?

The world is highly dependent on electricity, even more so now than ever before. A massive solar storm can leave the Earth in bad shape and cause a global-scale of darkness. We must always be ready for such an event to prevent further panic and havoc.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - "We're much more reliant on technology these days that is vulnerable to space weather than we were in the past. If we were hit by an extreme event today, it'd be very difficult to respond," said Thomas Berger, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in an interview with Gizmodo. Since the one storm in the mid-19th century, the Earth hasn't been hit by a huge solar storm.

Solar flare, an explosion on the sun's surface, usually start as a solar storm that sends off energy and particles to the space stream, which can then cause radio disruptions that affect airline communications. There are three types of solar flare; the weak C-class flare that occurs from time to time, but doesn't affect our planet, M-class that causes minor radio disruptions, and the rare X-class that releases energy almost equivalent to a billion hydrogen bombs, according to Gizmodo.

The charged particles discharged by the eruption will arrive on Earth in a matter of minutes or hours. These can increase the radiation level, making it harmful to those in space and their technology. Although we have to be concerned about solar flares in the realm of spacefaring, these charged particles are not as risky for those on the ground.

However, we should be cautious about the coronal mass ejections, giant clouds of magnetized plasma, which is the slowest solar weather but the most dangerous. It could take from 12 hours to several days before reaching Earth, providing a little more time for observatories and space weather forecasters to notify others. There's a big chance of the storm not hitting the Earth directly, but if it does, for about 30 minutes to an hour a cloud of plasma could rain down and initiate geomagnetic storm.

More than a century-and-a-half ago, we were hit by such a storm - dubbed as the 1859 Carrington event. Although it did not leave too much damage, the same size of solar storm can spell global disaster today due to our greater reliance on electricity. It can lead to a worldwide power outage, loss of connections including the internet, among many other consequences. Effects could last years, according to the report.

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