Photograph by TJK/Alamy Image courtesy SDO/NASA Published August
3, 2011 Storms are brewing about 93 million miles (150 million
kilometers) away, and if one of them reaches Earth, it could
knock out communications, scramble GPS, and leave thousands
without power for weeks to months. The tempest is what's known
as a solar storm, a flurry of charged particles that erupts from
the sun. Under the right conditions, solar storms can create
extra electrical currents in Earth's magnetosphere—the region
around the planet controlled by our magnetic field. The
electrical power grid is particularly vulnerable to these extra
currents, which can infiltrate high-voltage transmission lines,
causing transformers to overheat and possibly burn out. "The
concern is if the electric grid lost a number of transformers
during a single storm, replacing them would be difficult and
time-consuming," said Rich Lordan, senior technical executive
for power delivery and utilization at the Electric Power
Research Institute (EPRI). "These pow