Why do solar flares affect power grids

How did solar flares affect Earth's Communications?

Satellites power Earth’s communications. In 1972, a solar flare knocked out long-distance telephone lines in Illinois, for example. In 1989, a flare blacked out most of Quebec province, cutting power to roughly six million people for up to nine hours. In 2005, a solar storm disrupted GPS satellites for 10 minutes.

Can solar flares lead to geomagnetic storms?

The National Weather Service operates the Space Weather Prediction Center, which watches for solar flares that could lead to geomagnetic storms. Video via National Weather Service. Geomagnetic storms generate induced currents, which flow through the electrical grid.

How will solar storms affect the world?

Bottom line: Massive solar storms could damage the power grid, disrupt the internet, affect GPS and create auroras that reach toward the equator. Will solar flares destroy modern civilization?

What happens when a solar flare hits Earth?

And that’s when things can get interesting. About eight minutes after a solar flare, its light reaches Earth in a flash of visible light. That’s also when a spike in ultraviolet light and X-rays sprays the upper atmosphere, causing a slight magnetic disturbance at the surface. That was the twitch the magnetic instruments at the Kew sensed in 1859.

Are solar flares dangerous?

Luckily, solar flares don’t pose a direct threat to our health here on Earth. Our atmosphere and magnetic field shield us from the harmful radiation emitted by solar flares, so we don’t get “zapped” by them. However, solar flares can be a risk to astronauts in space.

What triggers a solar flare?

The trigger is a sudden, localized release of pent-up magnetic energy that blasts out radiation across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to gamma rays. Many solar flares, though not all, are accompanied by a coronal mass ejection, a massive chunk of the sun’s hot gas blown into space along with a tangle of magnetic fields.