How the loss of SOHO could impact everyday life

By Robert Roy Britt
SPACE.COM

June 23 — Earth’s first line of defense against massive communication failures is expected to go offline this week, raising the very real possibility that should a giant solar flare occur, the disruptions of media broadcasts as well as consumer and military communications dependent on satellites could rise sharply.

THESE FLARES ARE geomagnetic eruptions from the Sun’s surface that send giant clouds of electrically charged particles racing towards Earth on the solar winds. While the world’s magnetosphere protects us from the flares’ radiation, a by-product of this defense — the particles — illuminate the skies in a phenomena known as the aurora.

However, there is a negative side to the light show: During such an event everything from television broadcasts to pager services and weather forecasts vital to airlines, even terrestrial power grids, are suddenly more vulnerable to failure.

Normally, the Sun-watching Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft would give us fair warning of such an event, but the spacecraft’s primary antenna has been stuck since last week. Mission officials expect the probe’s orbital movement by the end of this week will carry it into a blackout phase. No solar data or images will be sent home.