Senior space agency scientists believe the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares after the Sun wakes “from a deep slumber†sometime around 2013, UK Daily Telegraph has disclosed.
National power grids could overheat and air travel severely disrupted while electronic items, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.
In a new warning, Nasa said the super storm would hit like “a bolt of lightning†and could cause catastrophic consequences for the world’s health, emergency services and national security unless precautions are taken.
Scientists believe it could damage everything from emergency services’ systems, hospital equipment, banking systems and air traffic control devices, through to “everyday†items such as home computers, iPods and sat navs.
“We know it is coming but we don’t know how bad it is going to be,†Dr Richard Fisher, the director of Nasa’s Heliophysics division, said in an interview with the Daily Telegraph.
“It will disrupt communication devices such as satellites and car navigations, air travel, the banking system, our computers, everything that is electronic. It will cause major problems for the world.
In the US, the National Academy of Sciences warned two years ago that power grids, GPS navigation, air travel, financial services and emergency radio communications could “all be knocked out by intense solar activityâ€.
It warned a powerful solar storm could cause “twenty times more economic damage than Hurricane Katrinaâ€.
That storm devastated New Orleans in 2005 and left an estimated damage bill of more than US$125bn.
