A solar storm will destroy the Earth and cause the “end” of the Internet

A solar storm will destroy the Earth and cause the “end” of the Internet

An ‘Internet apocalypse’ could ride to Earth with the next solar storm, new research warns

An ‘Internet apocalypse’ could ride to Earth with the next solar storm, new research warns. The sun is always showering Earth with a mist of magnetized particles known as solar wind.

For the most part, our planet’s magnetic shield blocks this electric wind from doing any real damage to Earth or its inhabitants, instead sending those particles skittering toward the poles and leaving behind a pleasant aurora in their wake. But sometimes, every century or so, that wind escalates into a full-blown solar storm — and, as new research presented at the SIGCOMM 2021 data communication conference warns, the results of such extreme space weather could be catastrophic to our modern way of life.

In short, a severe solar storm could plunge the world into an « internet apocalypse » that keeps large swaths of society offline for weeks or months at a time, Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, wrote in the new research paper .