A ‘solar tsunami’ could knock out global internet

Did you know that the next big solar storm could knock out the internet around the world? Although it is likely not set to happen soon, it is a possibility. UC Irvine professor Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi recently outlined the vulnerabilities present in our current global internet infrastructures, and it seems there is cause for concern. This is because the electronic systems of undersea cables responsible for the internet are very vulnerable to the resulting radiation from a solar storm. If they were to get damaged, it would take a lot of time, effort, and money to fix them. During that time global economies would suffer as the internet would be down.