How Dangerous is a Solar Storm?

The sun is the sole source of light and energy that allowed the human civilization to survive on our planet. However this hot ball of gases and fire is not all benevolent. In fact it can be quite the trouble maker when it comes to our high tech society.

In the 18th century a particularly strong solar storm affected the telegraph service on the planet. Operators actually disconnected their batteries and were able to function using the surge of electromagnetic power that the sun had provided!

Fortunately such a strong solar storm has not reoccurred in a century. So we were able to go high tech without much interference from the sun. Now however, with everything based on mobile and wireless technologies, a similar solar storm in this century may leave us in dire straights.

The truth is that the sun is not as stable a source of power as we would like to believe it is. It has its ups and downs, and yes it has the potential to knock out our civilization. There is little that we can do to stop it, but we can still try to be prepared for the worst that it can send us using our experience from countless science projects to help us along the way.