[SFDXA] The next Carrington-level solar superstorm could wipe out 'all our satellites, ' new simulations reveal

[Bill]

/From Tony N2MFT:/

*The next Carrington-level solar superstorm could wipe out 'all our 
satellites,' new simulations reveal*

News <https://www.livescience.com/news>

By Harry Baker 
<https://www.livescience.com/author/harry-baker> published October 30, 2025

New ESA simulations suggest that a solar storm on par with the 1859 
Carrington Event could wreak havoc on Earth-orbiting satellites — and it 
is a question of "when," not "if" this will happen, experts say.

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commission. Here’s how it works 
<https://www.livescience.com/about-live-science#section-affiliate-advertising-disclosure>.

Photo taken from the ISS showing part of the station hovering above the 
northern lights

New simulations reveal that no spacecraft's safety will be fully 
guaranteed when the next Carrington-level solar storm strikes our 
planet.(Image credit: ESA/NASA–T. Pesquet)

Worrying new simulations show that a solar storm on par with the 
infamous Carrington Event 
<https://www.livescience.com/carrington-event#section-what-would-a-carrington-event-do-today> could 
potentially wipe out every single satellite orbiting our planet, leaving 
us in a precarious and expensive predicament. And experts say such a 
powerful solar storm is inevitable and will hit our planet sooner or later.

On Sept. 1, 1859, British astronomer Richard Carrington observed a 
brilliant flash of light coming from a gigantic sunspot 
<https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/see-the-monster-sunspot-that-launched-the-carrington-event-the-most-devastating-solar-storm-in-recorded-history> that 
was about the same size as Jupiter. He had witnessed the most powerful 
solar flare <https://www.livescience.com/tag/solar-flare> in recorded 
history, and it was followed by a major disturbance to Earth's magnetic 
field <https://www.livescience.com/tag/earths-magnetic-field>, known as 
a geomagnetic storm, which raged for almost a week and painted the skies 
with widespread auroras.

Now, a new set of simulations conducted by the European Space Agency 
<https://www.livescience.com/tag/european-space-agency> (ESA) has 
revealed that if a similar event occurred today, the effects would be 
much more catastrophic due to our reliance on technologies — both on 
Earth and in space.

The simulations were part of a tabletop exercise carried out by 
researchers from multiple ESA departments at the European Space 
Operations Center in Darmstadt, Germany. The simulations were in 
preparation for the upcoming launch of ESA's Sentinel-1D radio imaging 
satellite, which is currently scheduled for Nov. 4 
<https://www.copernicus.eu/en/news/news/observer-countdown-launch-copernicus-sentinel-1d-lifts-november#:~:text=Following%20the%20successful%20expansion%20of,of%20end%20users%20rely%20worldwide.>.

In the hypothetical scenario 
<https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2025/10/Space_weather_simulations_exercice_at_ESOC>, 
an X45 magnitude solar flare 
<https://www.livescience.com/tag/solar-flare> — around five times more 
powerful than the most intense solar flare of the current solar cycle 
<https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/x9-solar-flare-launched-from-sun-is-the-biggest-in-7-years-and-earth-is-in-the-firing-line-again> — 
suddenly erupts from the sun, showering Earth with a wave of intense 
radiation without warning. Around 15 hours later, after another wave of 
radiation, a gigantic cloud of fast-moving plasma known as a coronal 
mass ejection 
<https://www.livescience.com/what-are-coronal-mass-ejections> (CME), 
hits our planet at more than 4.4 million mph (7.1 million km/h), 
triggering a Carrington-like geomagnetic storm.

A fiery yellow sun with a blotchy orange sunspot, underneath a blobby 
sketch of an even larger sunspot as recorded by Richard Carrington in 1859

Richard Carrington's sketch of the "monster" sunspot from 1859 revealed 
the dark patch was the size of Jupiter. In this image, his drawing has 
been superimposed onto a modern photo of the sun's surface. (Image 
credit: Richard Carrington/ NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory/ 
SpaceWeather.com)

While the researchers' response to this scenario was focused on how they 
would protect Sentinel-1D, the simulations also demonstrated how the 
global constellation of orbiting spacecraft would fare in such an event.

"The immense flow of energy ejected by the sun may cause damage to all 
our satellites in orbit," Jorge Amaya 
<https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Jorge-Amaya-7>, ESA's space 
weather modeling coordinator , said in a statement 
<https://www.esa.int/Space_Safety/Space_weather/Flying_through_the_biggest_solar_storm_ever_recorded>. 
"Satellites in low-Earth orbit are typically better protected by our 
atmosphere and our magnetic field from space hazards, but an explosion 
of the magnitude of the Carrington Event would leave no spacecraft safe."

In the exercise, there were three main threats that satellites faced. 
First, the initial wave of radiation from the solar flare, which could 
permanently or temporarily disable any satellites too far from Earth's 
inner magnetic field. Second, a follow-up wave of radiation that 
scrambled navigation systems, increasing the likelihood of collisions. 
And third, the CME, which caused the upper atmosphere to swell outward 
as it soaked up the solar storm's energy.

The atmospheric swelling is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of this 
triple threat, as it could increase satellites' drag by up to 400%, 
pulling the spacecraft down to Earth, where they will either burn up in 
the atmosphere 
<https://www.livescience.com/space/watch-chinese-satellite-burn-up-over-us-in-spectacular-fireball> or 
crash to the planet's surface 
<https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/charred-piece-of-secretive-chinese-rocket-found-still-smoldering-in-the-australian-outback>.

Looped video footage showing interference to satellites trained on the 
sun during a solar flare

Solar flares release near-light-speed waves of intense radiation that 
hit satellites without warning. This ultraviolet wavelength footage 
shows this radiation hitting the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory 
(SOHO) spacecraft shortly after a solar flare in 2003. (Image credit: 
ESA/NASA)

We got a small taste of what the effects of such an event would be like 
during the record-breaking geomagnetic storm of May 2024, which was the 
most powerful of its kind for 21 years 
<https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/extreme-geomagnetic-storm-that-painted-earth-with-auroras-this-weekend-was-the-most-powerful-in-20-years> and 
triggered widespread aurora displays 
<https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/well-be-studying-this-event-for-years-recent-auroras-may-have-been-the-strongest-in-500-years-nasa-says>.

In addition to knocking a handful of satellites out of low Earth orbit, 
the 2024 storm significantly disrupted GPS systems, resulting in 
malfunctioning agricultural machinery 
<https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/like-they-were-demon-possessed-geomagnetic-super-storms-are-causing-tractors-to-dance-from-side-to-side-across-us-farms-and-the-sun-is-to-blame> that 
cost U.S. farmers around $500 million 
<https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/may-2024-solar-storm-cost-usd500-million-in-damages-to-farmers-new-study-reveals>.

But that was only a drop in the ocean compared with the costs of a 
Carrington-like storm. A 2013 study 
<https://assets.lloyds.com/assets/pdf-solar-storm-risk-to-the-north-american-electric-grid/1/pdf-Solar-Storm-Risk-to-the-North-American-Electric-Grid.pdf> analyzing 
the possible impact of such an event on North American power grids 
revealed that the U.S. could incur damages of up to $2.6 trillion, while 
the Planetary Society 
<https://www.planetary.org/articles/should-you-be-worried-about-solar-storms> noted 
the true global cost is "beyond the scale of our comprehension."

**

*"When" not "if"*

The reason that tabletop exercises like this are important is that 
another Carrington-like storm may not be far away.

"The key takeaway is that it's not a question of if this will happen but 
when," Gustavo Baldo Carvalho, a spacecraft operations expert who led 
the Sentinel-1D simulations, said in the statement.

An infographic displaying the parameters of the new simulations

Tabletop exercises play an important role in teaching experts how they 
should respond in worst-case scenarios. (Image credit: ESA)

Experts think that a Carrington-level storm occurs every 500 years on 
average, putting the odds of such an event occurring this century at 
around 12% 
<https://www.itu.int/hub/2024/08/solar-storms-are-we-ready-for-another-carrington-event-2/#:~:text=Expecting%20the%20improbable,cannot%20ignore%20the%20threat%20though>.

While the latest exercise is further proof that we are not currently 
equipped to deal with 
<https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/the-us-isnt-prepared-for-a-big-solar-storm-exercise-finds> this 
type of extreme scenario, researchers hope that by continually training 
for this eventuality we will become better able to deal with it.

"Simulating the impact of such [an] event is similar to predicting the 
effects of a pandemic <https://www.livescience.com/tag/pandemic>," Amaya 
said. "We will feel its real effect on our society only after the event, 
but we must be ready and have plans in place to react in a moment's notice."

But the longer we have to wait for the next megastorm, the more costly 
it will become, as the number of satellites orbiting our planet is 
predicted to rise by at least tenfold by 2050 
<https://www.livescience.com/space/space-exploration/how-many-satellites-could-fit-in-earth-orbit-and-how-many-do-we-really-need>.

*TOPICS*

Solar flare <https://www.livescience.com/tag/solar-flare>

Harry Baker

*Harry Baker* <https://www.livescience.com/author/harry-baker>

Senior Staff Writer

Harry is a U.K.-based senior staff writer at Live Science. He studied 
marine biology at the University of Exeter before training to become a 
journalist. He covers a wide range of topics including space 
exploration, planetary science, space weather, climate change, animal 
behavior and paleontology. His recent work on the solar maximum won 
"best space submission" at the 2024 Aerospace Media Awards 
<https://www.aerospacemediadinner.com/> and was shortlisted in the "top 
scoop" category at the NCTJ Awards for Excellence in 2023. He also 
writes Live Science's weekly Earth from space 
<https://www.livescience.com/tag/earth-from-space> series.

https://www.livescience.com/space/the-sun/the-next-carrington-level-solar-superstorm-could-wipe-out-all-our-satellites-new-simulations-reveal


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