Juha-Pekka Luntama, head of the Space Weather Office at the European Space Agency (ESA), made his remarks as he geared up for a media briefing tomorrow, at which he and colleagues will present details of the ESA’s pioneering British-led Lagrange mission, which aims to put a probe in orbit around the Sun to monitor activity.
And he stressed it was not a question of if, but when, the Earth faced a potentially hazardous solar storm.
He explained: “Our Sun may be nice and quiet looking but it’s actually not.
“We have these things called energetic solar particle events whereby protons and electrons are ejected from the Sun and approach the speed of light.
“When they hit satellites they can cause malfunctions and even destroy the satellite electronics.”
In addition, the Earth’s violently active star regularly bursts into life with solar flares, which are often accompanied by a phenomenon known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), an explosion in the solar magnetic field ejecting billions of tons of solar plasma into space.
Mr Luntama said CMEs represented the biggest hazard of all, with the capacity to send Earth’s electronic instruments haywire.
He added: “For a long time, we have been lucky.
“We had a rather big event in 2012 but it happened a couple of days too late and did not affect us.”
Referring to the so-called 1859 “Carrington event”, whereby a CME caused some telegraph wires to become red-hot and even catch fire in some instances, Mr Luntama said: “We haven’t had one that big since then but if it happened once then it will happen again and we need to be prepared.”
To this end, he and his colleagues will be outlining the proposed Lagrange mission, for which European aerospace industry, e.g. British-based aeronautics company Airbus, are drawing up the initial designs prior to an application for full funding next year, at their stand at the New Scientist Live festival at London’s ExCel centre.
If Lagrange becomes a reality, it will see a spacecraft positioned in an orbit around the Sun, which would be able to monitor solar flares, CMEs and other activity and allow space weather forecasting more accurately than what is possible today.
Mr Luntama explained: “We can see these events with instruments on Earth and in space on Sun-Earth line but it is a bit like being a goalkeeper with the ball coming directly towards you.
“If you look at these things from the side you can see how quickly they are coming.
“Lagrange would improve the ability to give more accurate readings and if we can warn the people who are operating satellites and power systems they can take steps to protect the equipment.”
The cost of the mission is currently estimated at just under £443million (E500).
But Mr Luntama stressed this cost was good value compared with the estimated £14billion (€16billion) hit the continent of Europe would take in the event of a fully-fledged CME event.
He added: “Nobody’s even tried to do an estimate of the worldwide cost.
“If there is a major solar eruption the whole world will be impacted.”