Reuters reported Saturday that the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration is warning of possible communications outages in coming days due to a developing moderate to strong geomagnetic storm. But the peak in solar activity isn't expected until 2013.
What's behind NOAA's warning? Let's look at some common questions and answers about solar storms:
What is a solar storm?
To understand what a solar storm is, you need to be familiar with sunspots. Sunspots are areas on the sun's surface that differ in temperature from the rest of the sun and generate powerful magnetic fields. When there are a lot of sunspots, solar storms occur. The solar wind (charged particles blowing off the sun) picks up, pent up magnetic energy is released ("solar flare"), and speeding streams of plasma and embedded magnetic fields spew from the sun's corona ("coronal mass ejections").
When high speed CMEs enter the Earth's magnetosphere, they can cause geomagnetic storms which disturb magnet fields on Earth.
How frequent are big solar storms?
Big solar storms take place on average every 11 years.
What is solar maximum and why is it significant?
The high point in the solar activity cycle, called solar maximum, is expected in 2013. Solar max brings with it increased solar storm activity. Solar storms may alter magnetic fields on earth's surface and interfere with the functioning of satellites in space.
How do solar storms affect the human body?
Solar storms have no effect on the body.
Why are people comparing the predicted 2013 solar storm to Hurricane Katrina?
Solar storms have the potential to knock out communications and disrupt power grids, even burst pipelines. The damage to satellites or power grids could last for hours, or possibly days. Any significant destruction of infrastructure would be costly. Scientists say there is no reason to believe that the solar storm predicted for 2013 would be deadly or catastrophic. They also say that there's nothing we can do to protect electronics from its effects.
What are some of the effects on earth of historical solar storms?
* In 1859, the Carrington Event (named after English astronomer Richard Carrington) set fire to telegraph machines and created red, green and purple auroras so bright, people could read by their glow. The electrical currents produced by the Carrington Event were so strong that even without batteries, the telegraph machines functioned.
* At various times and places, observers of auroras created by sun storms were convinced entire cities were on fire and called on fire departments to extinguish them.
* Radio signals are frequently disrupted for short periods during sun storms. At a critical juncture in a Dogers-Pirates game in 1941, broadcaster Red Barber was silenced and fans missed hearing about 4 runs.
* In 1972, Canada suffered telecommunications equipment damage.
* The Quebec power grid went into emergency shutdown mode in March 1989, leaving 6 million without power.
* The $450 million Midori-2 research satellite fell victim to a solar storm in 2003, and other satellite operations were disrupted.
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