It happened again! Just these days, a strong solar storm hit our planet, giving its inhabitants the fantastic sight of polar auroras even at low latitudes and causing numerous small annoyances with all electrical equipment; it even threw off Starlink, Elon Musk’s satellite constellation.
We had a similar experience back in 1989 when the power grid in northeastern Canada was knocked out during a solar storm. In just 90 seconds, the region went from normal functioning to suddenly six million people without electricity. It took nine hours to reroute electricity in that part of the power grid.
Repairs took months. But that wasn’t even a major solar flare. After an extreme solar storm, the problems would be on a much larger scale.
The one that hit us a few days ago is said to have been the most violent magnetic storm in the last two decades, and yet, even this one passed without causing major damage…
But how can we be sure that one day a super solar storm won’t hit Earth, capable of killing us instead of just disrupting Musk’s satellites and our cell phones?
Some say it feels like our star is sending us warning signals. And that the little bastard – not at all the friendly source of life with a smiling face usually drawn by children – has been doing something decidedly unpleasant for millennia: namely, it’s been trying continuously to kill us! And there’s no guarantee that it won’t succeed one day.