A powerful solar storm could strike Earth, causing widespread internet outages—a rare occurrence in the interconnected world.
There has been renewed interest in the Sun’s solar cycles as it sends out solar storms, which can be so devastating that they disrupt all communication on Earth.
The Sun will reach its “solar maximum—a particularly active period—in 2025, and today’s digital world is not ready for it,” according to the Washington Post.
Terms like “internet apocalypse” have piqued the interest of social media users, resulting in a barrage of misinformation and unsubstantiated warnings from NASA, the American space agency.
The agency has not yet commented on the possibility that the 2025 solar storm will bring the internet to a halt.
However, people began to speculate on what the “always online” tribe would do if such an event occurred. Is it, however, all hype? According to the Post, these concerns are not entirely fictitious.
A powerful solar storm could strike Earth, causing widespread internet outages—a rare occurrence in the interconnected world. It mentioned the Carrington Event in 1859, which caused telegraph lines to spark and electrocute operators, as well as the 1989 solar storm that knocked out the Quebec power grid for hours.
The powerful solar storm is expected to disrupt large-scale infrastructure, such as undersea communication cables, potentially disrupting long-distance connectivity.
Such outages could last months, and the economic impact of even a single day of lost connectivity is significant.