Like how you can fry your electronics if they’re plugged in when the power comes back on from an outage, why can’t we “unplug” everything so to speak?
In: Planetary Science
Let’s start with how radio works. Radio is electromagnetic waves that travel through the air. We received this waves using an antenna. When the waves hit the antenna they create a flow of electrons – and the device we call a radio figures out how to turn this into sound.
An EMP is a big loud radio. And antennas are just pieces of metal. So, in the solar flare (or nuclear explosion) scenario, every single piece of metal turns into an antenna and starts having electricity flowing through it. If it’s attached to something important and generates more electricity than that thing can handle… Bzzzzt.
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