NASA has warned about a possibledevastating solar storm in 2013. According to their estimates, solar plasma would seriously damage communication systems (television and Internet) and energy, andits effects would be 20 times more intense than those of Hurricane Katrina.
During the launch of NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory last February, researchers from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Oxfordshire, England, had warned about the effects of solar winds during the Olympic Games in 2012.
Now, the experts of the space agency are worried about the danger that the explosion of a single and great space storm, generated more than 150 million kilometers away, on the surface of the Sun can pose for the Earth. “I think thatwe are in a new era in which space weather can become as influential in our daily lives as common Earth weather“said Richard Fisher, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division.”The sun is waking up from a deep sleepand in the coming years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time,our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms“, explained the specialist.
That’s why American researchers, legislators, and politicians have come together at the Space Weather Forum in Washington to refine the focus oncritical infrastructure protection. The ultimate goal is to enhance human capacity to prepare for, mitigate and respond to potentially devastating space weather events. NASA believes that much of the damage can be mitigated if the arrival of a storm is known as accurately as possible, with actions that, for example, protect satellites or disconnect transformers.
Theprobes like STEREO, ACE or SDOThey provide up-to-the-minute information on what is happening on the Sun, allowing permanent monitoring and analysis of solar flares.
