I think there's a bit of misconceptions that it's only long distance transmission lines that are affected. There's a lot of things that are affected. I guess the misunderstanding is understandable due to the famous "long distance lines catching on fire" occurrence during the Carrington event.
It was my understanding that radiation levels at Earths surface are still very low unless you had some kind of amplifying collector (ie - large antenna).
Devices at high altitudes and space are subjected to CME events quite often, and usually don't have many side effects other than degraded RF signal propagation.
What effects might you see at ground level in a normal microprocessor device? More bit flips than normal?
I was also expecting my satellite internet to degrade during the last CME that made the news (apologies - can’t remember the date), but it kept chugging along as if nothing had happened.
You make a great point about the resilience of certain tech during solar events. Most everyday electronics are shielded enough to handle minor solar disturbances, but the intense conditions of multiple X-class flares and a KP-9 geomagnetic storm like we're discussing can push beyond the usual scenarios.
Storms like this one flood the Earth's magnetosphere with energetic particles, increasing geomagnetic currents that can affect both large-scale and local infrastructure. This might lead to unusual behavior in ground-level electronics, such as increased bit flips, clock shifts, or even unexpected resets in sensitive systems.
As for satellites, their advanced shielding often keeps them running smoothly, which likely explains why your internet service didn't get borked. But during extreme events like now, disruptions to satellite functions and GPS signals will occur, as these systems face direct exposure to the storm's impact. Most likely spare capacity rerouted to supply your link during the impact.
I think it's interesting that secondary particles formed when these high-energy solar particles smash into atmospheric molecules also make their way down to us. These include muons and neutrons—particles that, while generally harmless, can penetrate deep into the atmosphere and occasionally impact ground-level electronics, adding another layer of interaction during severe solar events.
There's also the way that alterations to the flux of EM fields induced locally by the larger currents fluxing in the global electric circuit can cause glitches in microelectronics. And how the fluxing of current in the Earth's magnetosphere causes electron and other charged particle release from the ground. All of these things are amped up now and can contribute.
This whole interaction of solar activity / space weather with our technology is a dynamic area of study—there's always more to learn about how these cosmic and solar stuff affect our ground based or Earth based tech. Hahaha! :)
Thanks! :) Haha! I think the ISS hull uses classified shielding to provide some kind of advanced protection. But it's expensive and based on materials science activated with electric fields. I think they also have some detection system to detect and correct single-event effects. Just info tho, I don't have an article source for this haha! :)
Even then astronnauts may be advised to not use some devices during specific solar weather, or to move to safer parts of the craft hahaha! :)
Regarding some more general info you might be interested in:
