In September of 1859, the Earth experienced some very strange phenomena. The aurora borealis, normally seen only in the higher latitudes, brightened the night skies for several days as far south as Cuba, Hawaii, and Italy. At the same time, telegraph operators were plagued by electrical shocks, and fires were sparked by a strong current that ran through the transmission lines. Some operators found they could still send and receive messages with the equipment unplugged.
These odd happenings were labeled the Carrington Event, after one of the scientists who deduced that the Sun was the culprit. A few days before the event, English astronomer Richard Carrington observed a violent flare on the surface of the Sun. This flare sent a massive wave of magnetized plasma directly toward Earth. Called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), the arriving particles interacted with our planet's magnetosphere, spawning a huge geomagnetic storm. Fortunately, the event was short-lived, the only casualties being a few telegraph offices that had caught fire, and some singed fingers.
We are constantly in the path of smaller CMEs, some of which hit the earth directly, and many which sideswipe our atmosphere. They paint the arctic nights with dancing aurorae, and sometimes cause a deterioration of GPS data and radio transmissions. Stronger storms have caused power outages, such as the one that darkened Quebec for nine hours in 1989. On average, the Earth will have a close encounter with a CME once a week during the solar minimum, and up to three times a day in solar maximum (the cycle between them being approximately eleven years).
Scientists constantly monitor the Sun's activity using the data collected from satellites. In July of 2012, they detected a solar "superstorm" headed our way. Estimated to be at least as powerful as the storm of 1859, it narrowly missed our planet.
What if Earth had been directly in the line of fire?
Researchers agree that the resulting geomagnetic superstorm would have been catastrophic on a global scale. Our modern power grid, designed to facilitate the rapid transmission of energy, would be almost instantly overloaded by the highly-charged particles sent by the Sun. Almost every convenience we enjoy today relies on that power grid. A 2013 study estimated the potential cost of such a disaster to be up to US$2.6 trillion for the United States alone. The recovery time needed to repair the infrastructure is projected to be four to ten years.
In 2012, physicist Pete Riley published a paper in Space Weather, describing his research on the future frequency of strong solar storms. His conclusion?
There is a 12% chance of a major superstorm directly impacting Earth by the year 2022.
Sources:
Space Scientist Rob Steenburgh, Space Weather Prediction Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), via phone interview.
These odd happenings were labeled the Carrington Event, after one of the scientists who deduced that the Sun was the culprit. A few days before the event, English astronomer Richard Carrington observed a violent flare on the surface of the Sun. This flare sent a massive wave of magnetized plasma directly toward Earth. Called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), the arriving particles interacted with our planet's magnetosphere, spawning a huge geomagnetic storm. Fortunately, the event was short-lived, the only casualties being a few telegraph offices that had caught fire, and some singed fingers.
We are constantly in the path of smaller CMEs, some of which hit the earth directly, and many which sideswipe our atmosphere. They paint the arctic nights with dancing aurorae, and sometimes cause a deterioration of GPS data and radio transmissions. Stronger storms have caused power outages, such as the one that darkened Quebec for nine hours in 1989. On average, the Earth will have a close encounter with a CME once a week during the solar minimum, and up to three times a day in solar maximum (the cycle between them being approximately eleven years).
Scientists constantly monitor the Sun's activity using the data collected from satellites. In July of 2012, they detected a solar "superstorm" headed our way. Estimated to be at least as powerful as the storm of 1859, it narrowly missed our planet.
What if Earth had been directly in the line of fire?
Researchers agree that the resulting geomagnetic superstorm would have been catastrophic on a global scale. Our modern power grid, designed to facilitate the rapid transmission of energy, would be almost instantly overloaded by the highly-charged particles sent by the Sun. Almost every convenience we enjoy today relies on that power grid. A 2013 study estimated the potential cost of such a disaster to be up to US$2.6 trillion for the United States alone. The recovery time needed to repair the infrastructure is projected to be four to ten years.
In 2012, physicist Pete Riley published a paper in Space Weather, describing his research on the future frequency of strong solar storms. His conclusion?
There is a 12% chance of a major superstorm directly impacting Earth by the year 2022.
Sources:
Space Scientist Rob Steenburgh, Space Weather Prediction Center, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency (NOAA), via phone interview.
National Geographic, "What If the Biggest Solar Storm Happened Today?" by Richard Lovett, 3/4/2011
news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/03/110302-solar-flares-sun-storms-earth-danger-carrington-event-science/
ecology.com, "Earth's Greatest Threat: The Sun and Its CMEs" by Eric McLamb, 5/1/2014
ecology.com/2014/05/01/earths-greatest-threat-cmes/
Popular Mechanics, "The Looming Threat of a Solar Superstorm", by Lee Billings, 1/23/2012
popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/a7433/the-looming-threat-of-a-solar-superstorm-6643435/
Independent, "Solar Storm Scientists Prepare for Geomagnetic Event That Could Destroy Technology Across the World for Years" by Andrew Griffin, 4/8/2016
independent.co.uk/news/science/solar-storm-scientists-prepare-for-geomagnetic-event-that-could-destroy-technology-across-the-world-a6974421.html