ESA Mission Would Save us From Catastrophic Solar Storms

The Trump Administration wants astronauts on the moon by 2024, but the European Space Agency (ESA) is planning something far more ambitious – the ESA wants to slash the time it takes us to detect solar storms.

The MIT Tech Review points out that 1859’s Carrington Event, one of the largest geomagnetic storms on record, could wreak havoc with today’s power grids, GPS, and satellite communications, leading to catastrophic blackouts and electrical disruptions.

In the pre-any-of-kind-of-grid era, Carrington merely produced a huge aurora borealis. If it slipped by today, a massive geomagnetic event could be devastating. And therein lies the problem….

The UK’s official weather service, the Met Office, had previously warned that another Carrington event is inevitable.

“We think that the big solar incidents, like the Carrington Event, happen between one in 100 or one in 200 years, so it is a case of ‘when, not if’ we have one,” they said.

Today’s early-warning system, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Satellite (SOHO), sits at Lagrange point L1 and can predict the impact of a coronal mass ejection with an accuracy of six to 12 hours. The ESA’s proposed mission would cut that down to three hours.

The extra time could be crucial.

“In case of a Carrington-like event, satellite operators could shut down their operations, warnings could be issued to the general public that their GPS devices will shut down, and power grid operators could be given the chance to protect their equipment,” notes MIT’s Tech Review.

To do so, the ESA would launch a vessel to Lagrange point L5, which is the distance from the Earth to the sun (150 million kilometers) but parallel to the Earth.

This would give ESA researchers a constant view of the surface of the sun, and when paired with L1, which sits between the Earth and the sun, could boost detection accuracy and give us time to prepare.

Imagine being able to inoculate all our sensitive electronic equipment against a nuclear electromagnetic pulse (NEMP). Preparing for a giant solar storm could be just as critical.

If the Lagrange mission gets funded, it should launch by 2025.

Read more here: https://www.technologyreview.com/s/613205/the-space-mission-to-buy-us-vital-extra-hours-before-a-solar-storm-strikes/