{"id":73009,"date":"2017-10-02T15:02:33","date_gmt":"2017-10-02T22:02:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/an-earth-sized-space-shield-to-protect-us-from-solar-storms-is-less-crazy-than-it-sounds"},"modified":"2017-10-02T15:02:33","modified_gmt":"2017-10-02T22:02:33","slug":"an-earth-sized-space-shield-to-protect-us-from-solar-storms-is-less-crazy-than-it-sounds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2017\/10\/an-earth-sized-space-shield-to-protect-us-from-solar-storms-is-less-crazy-than-it-sounds","title":{"rendered":"An Earth-Sized Space Shield to Protect Us From Solar Storms Is Less Crazy Than It Sounds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/an-earth-sized-space-shield-to-protect-us-from-solar-storms-is-less-crazy-than-it-sounds.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Every 100 years or so, our Sun gives off a great big belch that sends an intense wave of charged particles towards Earth. This wasn\u2019t a problem in the past, but our high-tech civilization is now disturbingly vulnerable to these solar storms. A new study quantifies the economic risks posed by these extreme solar storms, while also proposing a super-futuristic solution to the problem: an Earth-sized shield built in outer space.<\/p>\n<p>The term \u201csolar storm\u201d is used to identify the various nasties the Sun can hurl our way, including x-rays, charged particles, and magnetized plasma. In 1859, a series of powerful coronal mass ejections (CMEs) hit our planet head on, disrupting telegraph stations and causing widespread communication outages. <a href=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/what-would-happen-if-a-massive-solar-storm-hit-the-eart-1724650105\" rel=\"nofollow\">If we were to be hit by an equally powerful solar storm today<\/a>, it would <a href=\"https:\/\/io9.gizmodo.com\/what-would-happen-if-all-our-satellites-were-suddenly-d-1709006681\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">knock out satellites<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/where-the-us-is-most-vulnerable-to-a-catastrophic-solar-1787758501\" rel=\"nofollow\">electrical grids<\/a>, disrupting global communications, transportation, and supply chains. Total worldwide losses could reach up to $10 trillion, with recovery taking many years.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/an-earth-sized-space-shield-to-protect-us-from-solar-st-1819057677?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=Gizmodo_facebook\">https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/an-earth-sized-space-shield-to-protect-u...o_facebook<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every 100 years or so, our Sun gives off a great big belch that sends an intense wave of charged particles towards Earth. This wasn\u2019t a problem in the past, but our high-tech civilization is now disturbingly vulnerable to these solar storms. A new study quantifies the economic risks posed by these extreme solar storms, [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":362,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39,48,2028],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-73009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-particle-physics","category-satellites"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/362"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}