Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

NASA Warns Solar Storms Could Wreak Havoc on Gadgets, Satellites

by Caleb Johnson on June 11, 2010 at 09:50 AM

solar stormsBreak out your shades, grab some SPF and... beware of your cell phones? According to Space.com, NASA scientists say the sun is ready for a period of increased activity, and the Earth could be in the line of fire. "The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity," Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division, told Space.com.

Countless aspects of our daily lives -- from driving to directing military activity -- depend on the satellites that orbit around our planet. When charged particles are blasted into space due to a sunspot eruption, these solar ions can knock out our beloved satellites. In other words, there's reason to worry, especially since, as DVICE reports, a major sun storm could cause $2 trillion in damages.

Thankfully, NASA scientists put their noggins together at a conference on Tuesday in Washington, D.C. The solution, it seems, boils down to devising better methods of predicting onslaughts of solar storms. Satellites could be put into a "safe mode," or even moved out of a fiery plume's path. Let's just hope astrophysicists are better at predicting weather patterns in space than our local meteorologist here on Earth. [From: Space.com, via: DVICE]

Tags: GPS, NASA, nasa heliophysics division, NasaHeliophysicsDivision, satellite, science, solar storm, SolarStorm, solarstorms, space, sun, top

Comments

4

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular