A geomagnetic storm, also known as a solar storm, is a temporary disturbance of the Earth’s magnetosphere caused by a solar wind shock wave. These are often produced by sudden flashes of increased brightness of the sun, known as a solar flare, followed by a coronal mass injection – the release of plasma. They emit radio waves and are often seen penetrating the upper atmosphere, creating bright auroras.
However, these eruptions do not usually pose a threat to Earth thanks to its magnetic field that protects us from further penetration.
It was revealed during Amazon Prime’s “Step to the Future” how the magnetic field acts as a shield.
The 2010 documentary revealed: “For now, let’s not forget the Earth is first a planet before it’s our home.
“Its logic is that of a planet, not our logic.
“Imagine that the Earth is locked up in a cocoon since it’s transparent the cocoon lets sunlight in, but it is resistant enough to act as a shield.
“It would protect life by pushing away cosmic rays and deadly particles that hit our planet during solar eruptions – well this exists and it’s the Earth’s magnetic field.”
The series went on to explain how important the magnetic field is, before demonstrating the true power of a solar storm.
It added: “Without it [the magnetic field], life on our planet would suffer irreversible damages.
“For example, on March 13, 1989, an incredible solar explosion short-circuited Quebec’s power plants and sent the country into darkness.
“Imagine the damage if the magnetic shield didn’t exist.
“The only exception is the beautiful Northern Lights – created by particles from solar winds that manage to get through the barrier of our magnetic field.”
The March 1989 storm caused a nine-hour outage at the Hydro-Quebec electricity transmission system in Canada.
It forced the company to implement various mitigation strategies, including raising the trip level, installing series compensation on ultra high voltage lines and upgrading various monitoring and operational procedures.
Other utilities in North America and Northern Europe implemented programmes to reduce the risks associated with geomagnetically induced currents (GICs).
NASA’s Space Shuttle Discovery suffered a moment of concern too, as the solar storm caused a sensor on one of the tanks supplying hydrogen to a fuel cell was showing unusually high pressure.
The Australian Army was also impacted while carrying out a peacekeeping deployment for the United Nations in Namibia.
The storm occurred just as the advance elements of the contingent arrived, but the effects were believed to last for weeks afterwards.
The Australians were heavily reliant on radio communications, which were severely impacted.
Since 1996, geomagnetic storms and solar flares have been monitored from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite, a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).