The impact of solar storms on life on earth is certainly very much. It never occurred to me that the sun, which is the center of the solar system and the earth’s greatest source of energy, would produce a storm. The existence of these storms certainly greatly affects the orbiting planets.
Process and Impact of Solar Storms on Earth
Solar storms are one of the natural phenomena that have a direct impact on human life.
At the time of this natural phenomenon, the sun will go through periodic variations or cycles of high and low activity.
The cycle will continue to repeat every 11 years or the shortest for 9 years.
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At the peak of the cycle or solar maximum, the sun’s magnetic poles will be reversed. For more details, let’s look at the process of occurrence and impact of the following solar storm.
The Process of a Solar Storm
The sun as the center of the solar system will certainly experience various kinds of activities. Such as corona mass ejection, sound, high-speed wind, energy particles, to the sound of the sun.
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All activity that occurs on the sun is the result of a magnetic field pushing. This activity could have resulted in a large explosion in the form of particles that have a certain charge.
These explosions are known as solar storms. Broadly speaking, solar storms occur because of a very large burst or burst of energy from the center of the solar system.
When there is a storm, the solar wind will come out of the sun. The solar wind comes out because of a hole in the sun’s atmosphere which has the name corona hole.
This natural phenomenon certainly has a significant impact on the surrounding space objects.
The impact of solar storms on earth is known as the internet apocalypse. The other impacts are as follows.
Disrupting Technology in Space
According to the National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN), solar storms can cause disturbances to conditions in the earth’s atmosphere.
The atmosphere that is most severely affected is the geomagnetic part of the earth and the ionosphere. These disturbances will of course have different scales.
If the disturbance is very large in scale, it will have the potential to affect human technology in space. For example, the space station, satellites, astronauts, and others.
Internet Apocalypse Occurs
As mentioned earlier, the most famous impact of solar storms is the internet apocalypse.
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It is called the internet apocalypse because the internet network will be very disrupted, even for months.
This is because the current internet infrastructure is not ready to deal with large-scale or extreme solar storms.
Solar storms can affect the internet because of the solar wind that the sun sends in large quantities to the earth.
The solar wind is charged with plasma consisting of a mixture of electrons (magnetic particles), protons, and other heavy elements.
During a solar storm, there will be geomagnetic disturbances on earth and this will affect the internet network infrastructure.
Disturbance in Submarine Cable Repeaters
The impact of this next solar storm is closely related to the impact of the internet apocalypse that occurred. The solar storm will greatly affect the submarine cable infrastructure.
The disturbance occurs because submarine cable repeaters are highly susceptible to geomagnetic currents that occur during extreme solar storms.
This submarine cable serves to connect the telecommunication systems of the continents between continents. Therefore, if the submarine cable is disrupted, the existing communication network will also be hampered.
Damage to the Electrical Grid
When a magnetic field touches the earth’s land, there will be magnetic induction. Magnetic induction is what produces an electric current in a long conductor.
The electric current contained in the long conductor is of course very large, even up to thousands of amperes.
That’s what makes the power grid very easily damaged due to excessive magnetic induction. It can be concluded that solar storms that occur in extreme conditions will greatly impact network technology on earth.
Disturbances that occur can take a very long time to repair, maybe up to months.
The good news is that the impact of solar storms is rare in equatorial regions such as Indonesia. If the storm that occurs is extreme, then the impact or disturbance that occurs has a smaller scale than other regions of the earth. (R10 / HR-Online / Editor-Ndu)
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