New alert is exceptional; because the sunspots that appeared this weekend are “exceptionally large”.
There is likely to be a strong solar storm one of the next days: “The stains solar cells that appeared on the Sun this weekend are exceptionally large.”
The warning comes from scientist Florian Günzkofer, from the German Aerospace Center, on the portal.
In a solar storm, a coronal mass ejectionwith giant clouds of plasma launched into space at millions of km/h.
A coronal mass ejection could hit Earth – and interfere with the functioning of satellites, systems communication or electrical networks.
In other words, a solar storm can damage critical infrastructure around the world.
And there are billions of euros in losses. According to the insurance company Lloyd’s, a solar storm could cause a global economy prejudice of little more than 2 billion euros over the following five years.
In the short term, there could be a loss of 15 billion euros.
Next level alert
The most recent solar storm was on November 12th. Last year, there was one that caused losses of 85 million euros.
But this time the alert is on another level, precisely because of the size of the aforementioned sunspots – there is a correlation between the size of these spots and the intensity of the storm.
In fact, the last time that spots of this size were observed in the famous , in 1859.
This Carrington Event was the most powerful geomagnetic storm ever recorded on Earth. Auroras were visible around the world and telegraph networks failed in Europe and North America; In some areas, induced currents caused fires.
“An event of the scale of what occurred in Carrington would be truly exceptional. If something like this happened, we would have to expect serious damage”, warns Florian Günzkofer, from the German Aerospace Center.
Power grids, satellite systems, blackouts, failures in navigation, communications and financial systems – and, consequently, in companies, in governments, in the daily lives of people around the world.
But it is not yet possible to accurately assess the likelihood of a severe solar storm. “As the currently visible sunspots have not yet erupted, we cannot predict whether something is going to happen and, if it happens, how serious the effects will be.”
