Scientists have issued chilling warnings of a possible “internet apocalypse” that could happen in the future due to a solar superstorm.
Professor Peter Becker of George Mason University described how an “internet apocalypse” could occur as solar activity increases and warned that the sun is becoming more active after a quiet period when we were less dependent on the world wide web.
The scientist is the lead investigator with the university and the Naval Research Laboratory and wants to create an early warning system to give advance forecasts of when the internet could be affected. He reckons solar flares could provide an indication.
In an interview with Fox Weather, he said, “The internet has come of age during a time when the sun has been relatively quiet, and now it’s entering a more active time It’s the first time in human history that there’s been an intersection of increased solar activity with our dependence on the internet and our global economic dependence on the internet.”
“There have been a lot of (solar) flares. Flares are when the sun brightens, and we see the radiation, and that’s kind of the muzzle flash. And then the cannon shot is the coronal mass ejection (CME).”
“So, we can see the flash, but then the coronal mass ejection can go off in some random direction in space, but we can tell when they’re actually going to head towards Earth. And that gives us about 18 hours of warning, maybe 24 hours of warning, before those particles actually get to Earth and start messing with Earth’s magnetic field,” he explained.
Meanwhile, he added that the magnetic field of the earth can be affected by large blobs of plasma that fly through space in a CME. Some of those affect the planet and distort its magnetic field. This can result in the third prong of an electric plug becoming “like a big electrical circuit.”
Becker, in his research, predicts that the internet could go down for a period of weeks or months. “The internet was simply not designed to handle this level of communication interference, and, consequently, is considered a very ‘soft’ type of infrastructure.”
“Hence, the period from 2024 to 2028 is a time when the entire internet could conceivably be knocked out for a period of weeks to months in the event of a really extreme solar flare.”
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