Near miss: the summer of ‘72

Exactly 50 years ago in August 1972, a series of powerful solar storms including significant solar particle events caused widespread disruption to satellites and ground-based communications systems on Earth.

The storms took place bang in the middle of NASA’s Apollo 16 and Apollo 17 Moon missions, with just a few months on either side. Fortunately, there were no human explorers outside the Earth’s protective magnetic field at the time. Had they encountered these storms from inside the command module, it is thought the radiation dose delivered would have caused acute radiation poisoning. For an astronaut on a spacewalk, it could be lethal.

“Reliable space weather services are a necessity for exploration and long-term habitation of the Moon,” says Juha-Pekka Luntama, ESA’s Head of Space Weather.

“A 1972-level event will happen again, and if we don’t stay vigilant, we may have astronauts in space and outside the protection of Earth’s magnetic field when it does.”