Solar storm is about to land on earth

Forecasts at the end of September, early October 2012, a few solar storms will "bounce", causing many satellites to be affected, interrupted or disconnected. This is a disaster, repeating the 11-year cycle of solar activity.

Destroying satellites

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ha Duyen Chau, former Director of the Institute of Geophysics, said that the solar storm is the explosion of a mass of plasma balls of billions of tons from the sun pouring into the universe. The satellites launched into space often have a distance from the Earth's surface from 100 - 500km. Therefore, when the solar storm occurs, the plasma beam will affect the first satellites, before falling to Earth.

When a solar storm emerges, billions of tons of plasma, the fourth form of matter, will 'discharge' to Earth, where the satellites will be the first to suffer. These beams will impact on the shell or on the components of the satellite resulting in loss of signal, failure, and life expectancy.

In 1997, the US AT&T satellite was destroyed by a strong solar storm. Damage at that time calculated up to 200 million USD. At that time, satellite production technology was not good, there was no technology to protect against solar storms.

A solar storm has time from tens of hours to several days. This problem may cause satellite signal loss, radio wave disturbance, and flight control to be interrupted. Strong magnetic storms are also likely to affect transmission lines and oil pipelines.

The storm that occurred in 1989 caused paralysis of the 700KV transmission system in Quebec (Canada) for 9 hours, causing billions of dollars in damage. Today this is overcome by installing a power compensation system for the substation. When a magnetic storm is present, this induced current will be annihilated.

MA Phan Van Dong, astrophysicist, Vice Chairman of Vietnam Astronomical Society, added: Every 11 years, the sun will be strong, the peak of the previous cycle in 2000, so in 2012 there will be a solar storm. This is a very strong storm and it is not possible to accurately predict the landing time of the solar storm when attacking the Earth.

Satellite is easily affected by solar storms.

Natural disasters

According to Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ha Duyen Chau, in the short-term forecast, it is possible to predict about 2-3 days when the solar storm occurs. This forecast will be based on observations of dark spots and spherical explosions that appear in the sun.

When black marks appear on the surface of the sun and these spherical explosions also mean that plasma beams can be released to Earth. The solar storm is strong, after about 1 day the plasma beam will reach Earth, normally it will be 2-3 days.

Calculating according to the 11-year period of solar operation, at the end of 2012 and early 2013, there will be big solar storms. In Vietnam, no project has directly studied the impact of solar storms on satellites. There are only research topics on the impact of magnetic storms on 500KV lines and impacts on oil and gas pipelines.

Mr. Phan Van Dong, warning, solar storm can cut off the supply of electricity, phone waves, paralyze satellite devices and affect human health. Particle radiation changes radio waves, causing automatic circuit breakdowns of control devices of power transmission lines, machines that operate automatically on satellites.

Next they will enter the atmosphere, change the ionosphere, affect the ozone layer, penetrate deep into the atmosphere causing skin cancer, increase cardiovascular and neurological diseases.

'Solar storms are a natural phenomenon, like earthquakes or tsunamis, so it cannot be avoided. People can only predict and have more sustainable satellite production technologies to cope with strong storms. However, it is inevitable that satellites with reduced life expectancy, or damaged components, when strong solar storms occur , 'said Prof. Dr. Duyen Chau.