Olga
A giant solar flare might hit the Earth. If it happen, the entire power system could be knocked out for months, Joinfo.com reports with the reference to the Daily Mail. The U.S. government is preparing for the extreme space weather. At worst, the catastrophic solar flares might wipe out achievements of modern civilization.
The same powerful geomagnetic solar storm, that hit the Earth, had happened in 1859. Eventually, it caused an explode of telegraph lines and power to fail in America and Europe.
“This is a real and present danger,” the White House’s assistant director for space weather tells the Post.
Sciences says something like that today could mean a $2 trillion economic hit. Something like that almost did happen in 2012, when NASA says we were nearly hit by two large plasma clouds.
“If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,” one physicist says.
The White House’s new plan calls for the US to get better at predicting space weather, shore up our infrastructure against EMPs, and more, the Chronicle reports. It’s a plan we may truly need: The Post quotes NASA as stating there’s a 12% chance of a giant solar flare in the next 10 years.
As reported earlier, dead comet that looks like a skull hurtles past Earth on Halloween. At first scientists thought that the object was a huge asteroid with a funky orbit. Eventually, they have discovered it is more likely a dead comet that has shed its volatile materials after several turns around the sun.
