On September 1, 1859, a solar storm of unprecedented power struck Earth. The large burst of electromagnetic energy sent huge voltage surging through telegraph wires, the only means of long-distance communication at that time. It caused sparking and in some cases melting of the wires. Telegraph equipment throughout Europe and North America became useless; some stations even caught fire. Known as the Carrington event, this is still the most powerful solar storm that ever hit our planet in recorded history.
On March 13, 1989, a smaller but still significant solar storm struck. It overwhelmed electrical power stations in eastern Canada, leaving 6 million people without electricity. It even melted power transformers in New Jersey. This event carried a fraction of the energy of the Carrington event, but it showed how vulnerable modern technology is to such solar storms.
If a solar storm like that responsible for the Carrington event hit us today, damage to Earth’s electrical generation and distribution systems could take weeks or longer to fix. The loss of satellites would disrupt communications and financial systems. Even internet connections would be lost until all the damage could be repaired. Replacing damaged satellites of all kinds would take many years.
A more massive solar storm struck Earth 14,300 years ago. Scientists discovered it by studying tree rings which showed a huge spike in a single year. They discovered a huge spike in radioactive carbon in a single year in tree rings. This radiocarbon data corresponds to an increase in beryllium, a marker of solar activity, found in glacier ice in Greenland from the same timeframe. The energy of this storm dwarfed that of the Carrington event.
"Extreme solar storms could have huge impacts on Earth,” said Tim Heaton, co-author of the tree-ring study. “Such super storms could permanently damage the transformers in our electricity grids, resulting in huge and widespread blackouts lasting months."
NASA uses multiple spacecraft that constantly monitor the sun looking for solar storms. They analyze these events and, in the case of a civilization-ending solar storm, NASA scientists believe that they could give the planet about 30 minutes' notice before a potentially devastating solar storm hits.
Thirty minutes warning to the end of technology, however briefly, that everything in our lives depends on. Such an event would bring civilization to its knees.
Each month, I write an astronomy-related column piece for
the Oklahoman newspaper. After publishing it there, I post that same column to my blog page.
This is reprinted with permission from the Oklahoman and www.Oklahoman.com.
