Earth Barely Dodged Solar Blast In 2012

Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Coronal mass ejections, with severity comparable to the 1859 Carrington event, missed Earth by only 9 days in 2012, according to researchers. The Carrington event caused widespread damage to the telegraph system in the U.S., and a similar occurrence would be devastating to modern electronics, it is thought. From the Reuters article, 'Had it hit Earth, it probably would have been like the big one in 1859, but the effect today, with our modern technologies, would have been tremendous.' The potential global cost for such damage is pegged at $2.6 trillion."

Re:ZOMG a bad thing didn't happen!

[galloog1]

One of the potential scenarios the US military does prepare for is loss of power to our power grid due to cyber attack so they are prepared. The US military partly exists for disaster response and there are several commands dedicated to it. Provided their already shielded equipment isn't taken out, they could have lines of communications established for government in a matter of days. They would most likely be given priority for resources if everything were wiped out and their ability to adapt to equipment issues both on the power generation and communications side is actually quite impressive. Source: I lead tin communications Soldiers. While other people dream of zombie attacks, I dream of kinetic cyber attacks.