Question: Could you program the death star?

Steve Williams answered on 9 Mar 2018:

Outstanding question. Well solar flares cause millions and millions of charged particles to be thrown out by the sun. These charged particles can be thought of as little packets of pure energy and can be seen when the come into contact with the Earth’s magnetic field producing the “Northern Lights” – you have probably seen this on TV. So what happens is there is a solar flare and if the eruption is pointing in the direction of Earth a few days later the charged particles arrive at the earth and polar skies light up. Its a form of radiation.

So if a charged particle hits a piece of electronics in the wrong place then it can release its energy and effectively burn an electronic component out and that would be permanent damage. In most case these types of events don’t permanently damage the electronics on our satellites because ours fly low enough to get good protection from the Earth’s magnetic field.