Will massive solar storm cause blackouts on Earth?

It's like a nightmare scenario from a science fiction movie: GPS navigation knocked out, mobile phones, TV and radio unusbale and blackoNothing works anymore, and silence, darkness and chaos take over.

But the images are not part of a Hollywood vision – they are the potential result of a gigantic solar storm, according to a new report byNASA which has issued a warning.

Huge plasma flowing inside the sun’s scorching interior leads to constant shifting of the outer layers’ magnetic field.

It can in turn cause violent eruptions, known as solar storms, which eject damaging radiation and charged particles into space, and are closely connected to magnetic fields – which are hazardous for satellites and space stations.

Will the Earth soon be faced with a total blackout?

“The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss,” explained Richard Fischer, head of NASA’s Heliophysics Division.

The discussion will take place in a meeting of experts in Washington. Two years ago, the National Academy of Sciences had framed the problem in a report entitled ‘Severe Space Weather Events—Societal and Economic Impacts’.

Modern society’s heavy reliance on technology was the crux of the report.

People of the 21st century depend on high-tech systems for the basics of daily life. And it is precisely these which are threatened by heightened solar activity: air travel, GPS navigation, financial services and emergency radio communications can all be knocked out by intense solar activity.

A century-class solar storm could result in 20 times more damage than the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina in the south-eastern US in August 2005. The storm killed 1,800 people and caused damages worth $81 billion (roughly €68 billion).

But a lot of the damage can be avoided, if it is known the solar storm is coming. Satellites can be put in 'safe mode' and transformers can be disconnected, protecting the devices from destructive electrical surges.uts in the power grid, plus a worldwide collapse of supply chains.