Russia will complete a plan for a program to protect itself against threats from space by the end of this year. That comes a month after a meteorite entered the Earth’s atmosphere undetected by existing space-monitoring systems and slammed into Russia’s Urals on February 15, accompanied by a massive sonic boom that blew out windows and damaged thousands of buildings around the city of Chelyabinsk, injuring over 1,500.
A solar “superstorm” could knock out Earth’s communications satellites, cause dangerous power surges in the national grid and disrupt crucial navigation aids and aircraft avionics, a major report has found.
There is a one in eight chance of a solar ‘megastorm’ before 2014, according to a Californian scientist – and other space weather experts agree that Earth is facing a burst of violent activity that will peak within two years.
In the event of a massive Category 5 solar storm, which is the most severe type and the type experts say may hit the earth very soon, electrical and radio systems could be completely destroyed. This has prompted officials from both the United Kingdom and United States to announce plans of controlled power “blackouts” to prevent national electricity grids from massive destruction.
The world is overdue a ferocious ‘space storm’ that could knock out communications satellites, ground aircraft and trigger blackouts – causing hundreds of billions of pounds of damage, scientists say.
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