Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, November 12 (Xinhua) Solar storms can cause serious damage to satellite communications and even affect the power grid on the ground. Charged particles emitted by the sun, from intense electromagnetic radiation such as solar flares to more powerful but slower plasma and magnetic radiation such as coronal mass ejections, distort the Earth's magnetic field.

If a particularly powerful solar storm hits Tu Yuan Pexels one day, it could trigger what Peter Peter Becker, a professor of physics and astronomy at George Mason University, calls "Internet Armageddon", which is more likely to happen when the sun enters its most active period.

"the Internet grew up in a relatively quiet period of the sun, and now it has entered a more active period," Becker said in an interview with Fox Weather Channel. " He was referring to the sun reaching its most ferocious period in its 11-year cycle.

"for the first time in human history, this is the intersection of increased solar activity with our dependence on the Internet and our global economic dependence on the Internet," Becker said. "

The Internet outage caused by solar flares is not as remote as it sounds. Take the Carrington incident of 1859 as an example, which "destroyed the Telegraph system" and the Telegraph operator was even "electrocuted".

To prevent the Internet and other communications systems from collapsing, Becker and his colleagues have been working on an early warning system that would give scientists enough time to "put satellites in safe mode" and "disconnect transformers from the grid. So they don't burn out.

In August, Becker and his team received more than $13 million in federal funding (CTOnews.com Note: about 94.9 million yuan), a collaborative project with the Naval Research Laboratory (Naval Research Laboratory) to develop such a system.

But predicting when these storms will hit Earth's orbit and atmosphere is still very difficult, and Becker likens it to predicting earthquakes. As for "strengthening the Internet" to protect it in the long run, Becker says companies simply don't have enough motivation.

"the Internet is simply not designed to deal with this level of communication interference, so it is considered a very 'soft' type of infrastructure," Becker said in a statement announcing federal funding in August. "so between 2024 and 2028, the entire Internet could be completely cut off for weeks or even months in the event of a truly extreme solar flare." Such an interruption could also have a serious knock-on effect around the world, plunging into a "global recession".

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