What makes a solar flare so dangerous?
In: Physics
A solar flare itself is not dangerous. Solar flares often (but not always) cause coronal mass ejections, which are huge clouds of charged particles that can be launched towards earth.
Two things happen when that cloud gets to earth.
1) The particles hit satellites directly. This can corrupt or even destroy processors and memory onboard the satellite, rendering it pretty much brain dead. A brain dead satellite cannot be controlled or orbit corrected, therefore it becomes a hazard to other spacecraft.
2) The particles smash into the earth’s magnetosphere. The magnetosphere then rings like a bell. That ringing can induce very voltages in long wires, such as power transmission and telephone lines. Voltages that power and telephone systems are not equipped to handle. Circuits can blow, transformers can explode, things will get ugly.
On September 1, 1859, a massive flare erupted from the sun and it’s associated CME hit about 16 hours later. For the next day or so, there was a huge magnetic storm that induced currents in telegraph lines. Telegraph operators got zapped and they could actually run the telegraphs without batteries.
March 9, 1989, was another large solar flare that had consequences on Earth. The induced power line currents caused circuit breakers and generators in Quebec to trip out and put a good portion of the province in the dark.
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