Austin American-Statesman

NASA didn’t warn of ‘apocalypse’

Space probe is not nefarious cover-up

- Sara Swann

Some social media users are claiming NASA is cautioning about a devastatin­g technologi­cal event that could serve as a distractio­n for “the Great Reset.” But that’s astronomic­ally wrong.

A June 25 Facebook reel claimed that NASA warned of an impending “internet apocalypse” that could leave people without internet connection­s for months or even years.

“This means we are not able to connect with each other, we are not able to call each other, we are not able to go on the internet and way more,” the person in the reel said. “But this also means that they can execute the Great Reset in silence without anyone knowing it.”

The Facebook reel shows screenshot­s of articles about NASA’s supposed warning of an “internet apocalypse.” These articles refer to NASA’s legitimate Parker Space Probe mission, which launched in 2018 “to revolution­ize our understand­ing of the sun.” The Parker Space Probe will travel closer to the sun’s surface than any spacecraft before it.

This closeness to the sun will let the space probe collect new informatio­n about solar winds, so NASA scientists can better understand them and how they might affect life and technology on Earth.

Solar wind disturbanc­es can change the orbits of satellites in space, shorten their lifespans or interfere with onboard electronic­s.

“The more we learn about what causes space weather — and how to predict it — the more we can protect the satellites we depend on,” NASA said.

Although space weather could disrupt Earth’s power grids and satellites, NASA does not use the phrase “internet apocalypse” in its online resources about the Parker Space Probe.

The phrase “internet apocalypse” appears to come from “Solar Superstorm­s: Planning for an Internet Apocalypse,” a study that Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, a University of California, Irvine assistant professor of computer science, presented at a 2021 data communicat­ion conference. The study analyzed the robustness of internet infrastruc­ture around the world and found that submarine cables have a higher risk of failure than land cables because of their length. If a solar storm disrupted these underwater cables, it could cause massive global power loss.

Severe solar storms are infrequent, astrophysi­cists say. But the study underscore­d the importance of bolstering global internet infrastruc­ture to mitigate future power outages in case intense solar storms come.

Also, there’s no evidence NASA’s Parker Space Probe mission is a coverup for something nefarious. NASA’s website doesn’t mention “the Great Reset,” which started as a set of global policy ideas proposed by the World Economic Forum at the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset, but has since been hijacked by conspiracy theorists.

The theory’s believers saw the World Economic Forum’s proposal as proof that “global elites want to use the coronaviru­s as a tool to reorganize global societies and economies to their benefit at the expense of ordinary people, with the ultimate goal of a global totalitari­an regime,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. But this conspiracy theory has been widely debunked.

We rate the claim that NASA warned of an “internet apocalypse” so the Great Reset could occur undetected False.

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