How much destruction can a Solar Storm cause on Earth? NASA tells us the SCARY truth

tech.hindustantimes.com:

A solar storm can be deadly. We all know it, we have read about it and every time a new solar storm hurtles through space \towards Earth, we read about it in the headlines. But just how destructive can a large solar storm be? You will be forgiven for taking the space weather phenomenon that causes beautiful aurora lightly. But in reality, it is one of the most destructive forces of nature. We just have not seen the true extent of it so far, but it has happened earlier on Earth. And while it may not kill humans directly, it can definitely create situations that can lead to mass deaths. While NASA continues its research into solar storms, solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CME), we have found out a lot about the destructive potential of solar storms.

Recently, NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) created history when on February 15, the Solar Orbiter spacecraft took unprecedented images of a solar eruption. This is the first time we have seen such a detailed view of the event and it has taught the astronomy community a lot more about these destructive events on the surface of the Sun. But NASA has been observing these solar flares and solar storms for a long time and has found out the energy released by them are exponentially larger than any nuclear weapon on Earth. According to the space agency, “The explosions, called solar flares, are capable of releasing as much energy as a billion one-megaton nuclear bombs”.

But thankfully we are millions of miles away from the Sun and solar flares in themselves are not a challenge we have to deal with. But the resultant solar storm is the real danger that looms over planet Earth. And to be honest, it is still not enough to kill on the planet, but it is capable of destroying