The sun always showers the Earth with magnetic particles known as the solar wind. These bursts of wind can always be driven away by the Earth's magnetic field so it doesn't cause damage to the surface.
But once every century, this solar wind turns into a more extreme solar storm. According to research presented at SIGCOMM 2021, there is a possibility that a solar storm like this could disrupt internet connections on Earth.
Assistant professor at the University of California, Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, in his paper said extreme solar storms could result in an "internet apocalypse" that would make it difficult for most of the population to connect to the internet for weeks.
"What really makes me think about this is with a pandemic we are seeing how unprepared the world is," Abdu Jyothi told Wired, as quoted from LiveScience, Wednesday (8/9/2021).
"There are no protocols to deal with it effectively, and the same goes for internet resilience. Our infrastructure is not ready for a large-scale solar phenomenon," he added.
Preparations for extreme solar storms are still minimal because this phenomenon is very rare. Scientists estimate the probability of an extraterrestrial weather phenomenon having a direct impact on Earth between 1.6% and 12% per decade.
In the last century, only two extreme solar storms have been recorded, in 1859 and 1921. The solar storm that occurred in 1859, also known as the 'Carrington Event', caused the telegram cable to burn, so that the aurora normally only exists at the poles was seen in Colombia. .
Even a relatively small solar storm also has a significant impact. Like a solar storm in March 1989 that made the Canadian Province of Quebec lose power for nine hours.
Since the world's population is currently very dependent on the internet, Abdu Jyothi also tried to examine the impact of a giant geomagnetic storm on the internet infrastructure on Earth.
In his paper, Abdu Jyothi said local and regional internet connections are unlikely to be affected because fiber optic cables will not be affected by geomagnetic waves.
It's different with underwater internet cables that connect countries and even continents. These cables are equipped with repeaters to boost optical signals which are placed every 50-150 km.
This repeater is said to be vulnerable to exposure to geomagnetic waves, and underwater internet cables can malfunction if one of the repeaters goes out. If there are a lot of undersea cables that don't work in one area, it's possible that connections on one continent will break with other continents.
The most affected areas are the Northern Hemisphere, including the United States and the United Kingdom. This region is the most vulnerable to extreme solar storms and if one occurs it will be those countries that will lose internet connection first.
"The economic impact of a single day of internet disruption in the US is estimated at around USD 7 billion. What if the network remains out of service for days or even months?" said Abdu Jyothi.
If the next extreme solar storm approaches Earth, Abdu Jyothi says we have 13 hours to prepare.
Abdu Jyothi suggested several things that could be done to anticipate this phenomenon from now on. For example by placing submarine cables at lower latitudes, and developing robustness tests that focus on the effects of large-scale network failures.
