Our mother star is constantly being watched by all the satellites like a bunch of security cameras over Wenceslas Square.

The outer rim of the Sun and the solar wind have been monitored by satellites for 27 years SOHO. But he’s not the only one. A mission also tracks stars Wind, ACE or maybe Parkerwhich in the past also penetrated deep into the sun’s atmosphere.

In 1859, they witnessed the aurora borealis as far as the Caribbean

They have different tasks, and one of them is monitoring solar storms, which we will deal with a little later magnetosphere – Earth’s invisible shield. A side effect of increased solar activity is the aurora borealis, which occasionally migrates to lower latitudes.

But the strongest storms can wreak havoc – disrupting power and telecommunications grids. We can only model the effect, the strongest a similar event occurred in 1859, when the current information age was still in its infancy.

However, increased solar activity at this time shut down early telegraph networks, and the aurora borealis was visible almost all over the world, including the equatorial region.

Each storm can manifest itself differently on Earth

Although satellites monitor the Sun’s activity, so scientists can know ahead of time that something is happening, modeling the possible effects on the Earth’s surface and in the atmosphere until recently has been extremely difficult. They can get into a storm different origin and speech. And that’s why they’re calling artificial intelligence into the fray – as is the custom nowadays.

The first strong solar eruption was detected on March 12 this year (the eruption lasted for several days animation on the NASA website)

AI can compare data from distant satellites with information from sensors in orbit and on the Earth’s surface, so it can learn how various plasma eruptions and electromagnetic disturbances on the Sun will affect Earth and its surroundings in the future.

DAGGER machine learning predicts disaster

The result is the DAGGER system we use today they brag scientists and engineers from American, British and Indian universities, as well as Nvidia, which is one of the key experts in business AI. Based on all available information, DAGGER makes the most accurate impact estimate on Earth to date thirty minutes early.

DAGGER is just like that precipitation radar for solar storms

So, if the Sun were to generate a solar storm of nearly cataclysmic proportions, and DAGGER calculated that the damage could be catastrophic on the surface — a massive power outage, for example — we’d have at least thirty minutes to prepare.

Even a weaker storm would destroy dozens of Starlink satellites

How? This remains a question, as there is no global early warning standard for such situations. However, at least it can land a moving plane in a critical area.

Satellite system operators can also prepare for the event. After all, only SpaceX it’s coming in a relatively weak solar storm in February 2022 by forty Starlink system satellites in low orbit.

If thousands of other small commercial rules populate LEO by the end of the decade, the damage and the amount of forced destruction in the atmosphere will be much higher in such an event.