Airbus UK to lead space weather warning project

Space weather occurs when enhanced solar activity disturbs Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere.

As well as emitting a continuous stream of magnetised plasma, known as solar wind, the sun also occasionally expels billions of tonnes of matter, threaded with magnetic fields. This matter expands outwards through space, in what are known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

If these huge clouds of matter pass over Earth, they can threaten satellites and aircraft, and disrupt GPS navigation systems, power grids and data and communication networks.

In 1989, for example, the entire province of Quebec in Canada suffered a power blackout for nine hours as a result of a solar storm. Similarly, a 2003 space weather event caused a blackout in Sweden, while an estimated 10 per cent of the entire satellite fleet suffered some sort of anomaly or malfunction.

A recent ESA study estimated the socio-economic cost of a single, extreme space weather event could be as much as €15bn.