Storm warning: physicist predicts solar damage
Friday, 10 March 2000
Australia's new national power grid and hundreds of satellites orbiting the Earth may have survived a recent solar particle explosion - but they might not be so lucky next time.
The warning comes from 亚洲色吧 University physicist Dr Roger Clay in the wake of last month's solar storm which hit Earth with an interplanetary shock wave of ionized gas and magnetic fields.
Dr Clay said the solar storm on 18 February - technically known as a coronal mass ejection (CME) of high-energy particles - did not cause as much damage as some had feared, but it was likely to be the first of many such explosions in the next two to three years.
A CME consists of a group of atoms, known as a plasma, which have had their electrons stripped away from the nuclei. These travel towards earth at speeds up to 500km per second.
In sufficient quantities, the wave of particles can disrupt satellites in their path and even create an electric current big enough to disturb the Earth's magnetic field, overloading electric power systems.
Dr Clay said the Sun had just begun its most active phase - known as "solar maximum" - w