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This Can Knockout All Power Grids And Communication Methods On The Earth In A Matter Of Hours


Yes, you heard it right. There is something that can take down the entire technological advancements of the mankind in a matter of hours. Any guess..? No it's not the Nuclear war. Let's find out what it is.

We all have heard about Nuclear weapons that can destroy the earth by the intense energy released by nuclear fission or fusion. But that's not what we are talking about. We are talking about the naturally occuring fusion reactor in our planet, the sun. The light and heat energy given out by the sun is being used in different ways by the life on earth for it's existence. But there is a limit in everything. Even the energy that we were talking about.



You all have heard about the northern light. The colourful waves formed in the sky that gives the night sky a majestic look. But what creates the northern lights? When charged particles from the sun strike atoms in Earth's atmosphere, they cause electrons in the atoms to move to a higher-energy state. When the electrons drop back to a lower energy state, they release a photon: light. This process creates the beautiful aurora, or northern lights.
But what will happen if the amount of charged particle is huge? Can it happen? Yes and it could be due to something called a solar flare or Coronal Mass Ejection. This type of CME happens when the solar cycle changes. That is happening in every 11 years when the sun's polarity reverses and leads to sudden emission of massive flares to outer space. Sometimes, towards the earth and this has happened once in 1859. It was named as Carrington Event which was named after the astronomer Richard C Carrington who observed and recorded it. This event caused wide spread disruption of Telegraph system throughout Europe and North America. It even electrocuted few Telegraph operators. But this all was in an early age when the technology was not advanced. A similar event could have happened in 2012. But the solar flare didn't hit the earth. It missed the planet this time. But what could happen if a massive solar storm hits the earth?

Considering the position of our artificial satellites in space, they will be the first to take the hit. The storm could cause huge electrical surges andburn the entire electrical circuits. Since we just lost the satellites that helps positioning systems like GPS, IRNSS etc we won't be able to guide planes, ships and defence syatems accurately. We won't have most of our communication technologies too. Because most of them rely on communication satellites. When it finally hits the earth surface, here comes the cascaded blackout of power grids.  Since most of the power grids are interconnected, even a hit on half of them can lead to a chain reaction and take down the rest. Back up systems won't be kicking in too because they also could have been hit and got their electronics burnt. Then there will be total chaos, fights for essential utilities and food and with in a few hours or days, the entire humanity will be affected by this disaster. It could take months and years to rebuild what we have now. We will have to start off from the beginning. Let's hope the day never comes.
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