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Just when it seems like there’s more than enough to worry about on Earth, a NASA-funded study warns extreme space weather could have catastrophic consequences on everything from power grids to pacemakers.
Routine activities such as talking on a cell phone, using the Internet and getting money from an ATM machine could suddenly halt over a large part of the globe—and governments could be powerless to control the situation.
The results "could be devastating" to societies dependant on advanced technological systems, said Daniel Baker, professor and director of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder and chair of the National Academy of Sciences panel that prepared the report.
Blame it on Solar Cycle 24, an 11-year-period of magnetic storms and strong solar winds. Because they generate intense magnetic fields, solar storms can have significant effects on technology on Earth—potentially interfering with everything from power grids, communications cables and satellite communications to GPS, cell phones, ATMs and even medical devices such as pacemakers.
Solar Cycle 24 began early last year when a reverse polarity sunspot appeared in the sun’s Northern Hemisphere. A sunspot is an area of highly organized magnetic activity on the surface of the sun. The number of sunspots and solar storms will gradually increase in the next few years, reaching a maximum by 2012.
Scientists have regarded space weather as a potential problem since a major solar storm in 1859 caused telegraph wires to short out in the United States and Europe, igniting widespread fires. A similar storm today would have "significantly more extensive (and possibly catastrophic) social and economic disruptions," the researchers conclude.
NASA acknowledges extreme solar eruptions can have "severe consequences for communications, power grids and other technology on Earth." It authorized the study to quantify the potential economic effects of solar storms. "The sun is Earth's life blood," said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, noting that it's "vital" to understand extreme space weather to mitigate possible public safety issues.
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