"Every hundred years or so, a solar storm comes along so potent it fills the skies of Earth with blood-red auroras, makes compass needles point in the wrong direction, and sends electric currents coursing through the planet's topsoil. The most famous such storm, the Carrington Event of 1859, actually shocked telegraph operators and set some of their offices on fire. A 2008 report by the National Academy of Sciences warns that if such a storm occurred today, we could experience widespread power blackouts with permanent damage to many key transformers."There are plans afoot to create an early warning system to protect the US grid system in such events.
27 Oct 2010
Protecting power grids from solar storms
NASA Science News reports:
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Hmm, I wonder what an event like that would do to the internet, or to satellites?
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