Spaceweather.com reports on new research regarding the frequency of devastating CMEs (Coronal Mass Ejections) hitting the Earth:
If you think you’re safe from geomagnetic storms, think again. A new study just published in the research journal Space Weather finds that powerful storms may be twice as likely as previously thought.
Jeffrey Love of the US Geological Survey, who authored the study, analyzed Earth’s strongest geomagnetic storms since the early 1900s. Previous studies looked back only to the 1950s. The extra data led to a surprise:
“A storm as intense as, say, the Québec Blackout of 1989 is predicted to occur, on average, about every four solar cycles. This is twice as often as estimated using only the traditional shorter dataset,” says Love.
Such storms are capable of knocking out satellites as well, such as geostationary communications satellites, or Elon Musk’s Starlink project.
Which makes such projects questionable when trying to offer a reliable Internet connection.
