In order to understand what a CME is, it's important to understand the solar cycle.
But every now and then, this massive explosion of energy does hit our planet, resulting in a geomagnetic storm which usually manifests into auroral lights typically seen near the north and south poles. Telegraph operators reported receiving electric shocks when touching their instruments as telegraph paper reportedly caught fire from the shortages.
Those satellites were still vulnerable because they were still in very low Earth orbit. But research presented in 2021 at the Two hundred or so cable-related outages take place each year. Most occur when ship anchors snap cables or commercial fishing equipment snags the lines. Others break during tsunamis, earthquakes and other natural disasters.Danger to the power grid
"The violence of this 'geomagnetic storm' caused spectacular 'northern lights' that could be seen as far south as Florida and Cuba," according to NASA. "And they said you could do a couple of things. The biggest one, I think, is just studying what would happen to your grid. And as I remember, you take a 1-in-100-year event, what would that do to your grid," Rorabaugh posited.
On most power lines, there is a circuit breaker at the end of the lines that open up to help mitigate a power surge, stopping any further damage. That extra boost of energy could potentially hop up onto power lines and even cause some damage to transformers, which are critical to ensuring we get our power — but again, experts say this is all hypothetical and very unlikely.