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Our Sun regularly spits up violent clouds of gas that pass through space at unimaginable speed. Such coronal mass ejections (CMEs) occur when the magnetic field of the Sun becomes entangled and when straightening, swarms of charged particles called superheated plasma are released. And if they are fired at exactly the right angle to the Earth, these plasma clouds can wreak havoc on our power grids, technologies and infrastructure.
A report warned that this disaster-generating solar storm is now called inevitability, with terrifying consequences for all of us on Earth.
The US Geological Survey (USGS) published a report in the science journal Space Weather that examines an event known as the New York Railroad Storm of 1921.
It was a violent geomagnetic storm that, alone, had obscured areas of the northeastern United States.
And worryingly, the USGS researchers admit that these alarming effects could be repeated almost at any time.
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Indeed, historical measurement and forecasting technologies do not predict when the next Carrington event will take place.
All that can be said with confidence is that the Earth will probably be affected by another super geomagnetic solar storm over the next century.
The researchers wrote in the report: "The severe weather event from May 13 to May 16, 1921 had dramatic technological impacts, sometimes causing destructive fires.
"It was characterized by extreme solar and geomagnetic variations, as well as spectacular auroras, recorded in many places around the world.
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"An abundance of information is available in scientific journals, newspapers and other sources, which allows us to reconstruct the chronology of the storm.
"This shows that a series of large CMEs bombed the Earth in May 1921.
"The first pair may have paved the way for intense activity, eliminated the density of the region between the Sun and the Earth, and energized the Earth's magnetosphere.
"Thus, a future CME could move faster and generate even more energy in the already active magnetosphere.
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"The chronology of the 1921 event, including the confusion caused by prosaic mistakes, can be used to construct scenarios that can be used today by those responsible for emergency planning situations." to reduce the negative impacts of future space weather events. "
A Harvard professor famous for his theory of extrasolar asteroids Oumuamua has proposed an innovative solution in the amount of $ 100 billion before the next hit.
Professor Loeb told Express.co.uk: "A Carrington-type event would cost about $ 2 billion to $ 3 billion [£1.5- 2.3trillion] says, in terms of damage to the infrastructure. "
The famous professor thinks that the most innovative mitigation would be to divert this mass of energy particles from the Earth.
He added, "We would create a current loop that would produce a magnetic field by deflecting the charged particles.
"And it would be located at the point of lagrange, because there is no gravitational acceleration at this place.
"It would be a major engineering project, but we have developed the numbers and the cost seems worth it, if you compare it to the cost of the damage.
"The cost of the magnetic baffle project is 100 billion pounds sterling. [£79.4billion], since the cost of taking a kilo in space costs around $ 1,000 [£795].
"But I think it will first require a Carrington-like event of the modern technological era before politicians act."
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