A solar storm rushes towards the earth. Most of the time it is harmless, but this time the US authority NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) warns!
"A geomagnetic storm warning is in effect for March 23-25, 2023," NOAA said in a statement. Geomagnetic storms are expected to last until Sunday 26/03/2023 and then weaken.
What exactly is a solar storm?
In such an explosion, high-energy particles such as protons, electrons and X-rays are ejected into space. A giant hole in the sun's surface sends a steady stream of plasma towards Earth. However, such a solar flare always takes a few days to reach us, so we have a corresponding warning period. Because solar storms can have disastrous consequences for us humans.
Physicist Joachim Woch of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research says at BILD: “As our world becomes more and more technological, damage in excess of billions can occur: communications satellites can fail, power grids around the world can be hit, and also massively fail.”
In 1989, Canada suffered a widespread power outage as a result of a solar storm that affected six million people. It took nine hours, during which time refrigerators thawed, hospitals and companies could only operate on emergency power supplies. And another danger: Passengers on planes flying over the northern route, for example, can be affected by dangerous X-ray radiation.