The article talks about what a magnetic storm is, as a result of what space activity it arises and what can be dangerous for people.
Space
We are surrounded by an endless empty space, where only occasionally clusters of planets or stars meet. And the latter, by the way, from ancient times attracted human attention to themselves and even helped, as was the case with the North Star or the Milky Way, according to which salt traders were guided.
And people almost every day see what we owe life to. This is the Sun. Had it been a little brighter, larger, or if our planet would have been outside the conditional habitability belt, perhaps life on Earth would never have originated. In addition to heating the Earth, the Sun can also be fraught with danger. And this is not heat and not sunburns, but real storms. A magnetic storm is a phenomenon that occurs as a result of solar activity. It gives rise to such a phenomenon as space weather. But first things first. So what is it and how can such storms be dangerous for people and technology?
sunny wind
If we use the scientific classification, then a magnetic storm is a disturbance of the geomagnetic field of the Earth, which lasts from several hours to several days. Such phenomena occur as a result of solar activity, when the solar wind enters into interaction with the geomagnetic field of our planet. And as a result of the manifestation and amplification of ring currents that are constantly present in the radiation belts of the planet, certain phenomena occur on the surface that affect both electronic devices and the physical well-being of people. So a magnetic storm is a phenomenon that, albeit imperceptible externally, but has an effect on the world around us.
To put it more simply, at certain times the activity of the nuclear reaction to the sun increases, plasma ejections occur, which reach the Earth, where they strengthen its magnetic field and ring currents.
Intensity
Scientists have long noticed that such cosmic phenomena occur with different intensities. It depends on the 11-year cycle of solar activity. So, if the average number of storms per year is about 30, then during the maximum activity of our luminary their number increases to 50. As it has already become clear, they are quite frequent, therefore it cannot be said that every magnetic storm is something supernatural and terrible dangerous. According to scientists, with an average life expectancy of 75 years, 15 of them a person spends precisely in times of such solar activity.
If we talk about the perturbation of the magnetic field near the surface of our planet, then during storms it increases insignificantly, only 1% of the constant norm.
Danger
Truly dangerous phenomena of this kind occur very rarely, about once every 500 years. And in ancient times they passed almost without a trace, since then there was no thin and ordinary electronics, on which all this could affect. The last such event happened in 1859 and was called the “Solar Super Storm”. The ejection of the coronary mass was so great and strong that it reached the Earth in just 18 hours, although usually it takes several days. This day of magnetic storm went down in history as the largest geomagnetic phenomenon. At that time, most of the developed countries were already actively using telegraph, and as a result of the storm, all stations were out of order, and the northern lights could be observed all over the world .
In 1921 and 1960 there were similar cases, but the storms then had much less power, and strong interference or radio communication failure was observed all over the world.
A similar thing can happen in our time, when electronics is used everywhere, especially one that does not like strong magnetic disturbances and uses wireless communication. And if the cosmic storm is especially strong, then it is likely that most electronics will fail.
Magnetic Storm Schedule
With the development of the near-space space of the Earth and the launch of satellites with telescopes into orbit, it became possible to predict such phenomena. They are mainly divided into 7-day, 2-day and 1-hour forecasts. The accuracy of the first two is 30% and 50%, and the latter is 95%. Many news and weather agencies on the Internet provide this information to weather-sensitive people.
Impact on us
Magnetic storms really affect the well-being of people. Back in 1928, academician Chizhevsky drew attention to the fact that during periods of such activity, a person has some symptoms that are expressed in general malaise, headache, increased or decreased blood pressure, worsening mood, and so on. By the way, some people can react to storms a few days before they begin, in fact, predicting the moments of the ejection of coronary mass from the surface of the sun. But fortunately, such phenomena alone do not lead to deaths.