Can A Solar Storm Disrupt An Internet Connection?

According to recent research, the Sun can cause an "Internet Apocalypse." A powerful solar storm has the potential to disrupt the internet, destroy underground cables, and harm communication satellites. A previous study indicates that there is a 1.6 to 2% chance that an extreme space weather event may occur during the next decade. Astronomers refer to it as a Solar Storm, also known as a Coronal Mass Ejection. A burst of highly magnetized particles from the sun will take place in this Solar Storm. These subatomic particles travel at a million Kilometres per hour and can take from 13 hours to 5 days to reach the Earth. Although the Earth's atmosphere protects humans from these particles, they can interact with the Earth's magnetic field and cause harm to man-made structures. She claims that India is less susceptible than the US, but that we don't know much about the intensity of solar storms and if a large one would affect India.

"Countries at lower latitudes are considerably less vulnerable," she claims. If the internet goes down for only one day in the United States, the country would suffer an estimated $7 billion in economic damage. The shutdown approach, described in a recent article, may help reduce the effect of a solar storm's connection loss both during and after it strikes. During a solar flare, a brief Internet outage is similar to turning off the electricity system. Only a handful of solar superstorms powerful enough to cause this kind of devastation occurs regularly each century.