Solar storms: more dangerous than you think. Can we survive another Carrington Event?

on september 1st 1859 a gold miner in denver started his morning routine he felt unusually tired but shrugged it off as he prepared his coffee he was used to waking up at sunrise but noticed the sky was much brighter and redder than usual maybe a nearby fire he wasn't sure a few minutes later his wife came downstairs and asked why he was up so early confused he looked at the clock in the wall it was 1am at the very same moment the ship's southern cross was sailing off the coast of south america when suddenly the seas turned violent waves lashed at the hull and hail pounded the deck the water reflecting the red sky above seemed to turn to an ocean of blood that morning an astronomer turned his telescope toward the sun and noticed something strange what happened next was terrifying let's find out why [Music] on september 1st astronomer richard carrington was studying the sun when he noticed something unusual at about 11 a. m he was observing a huge sunspot about 10 times the size of the earth then suddenly a flash of intense white light burst out of the spot what carrington didn't realize was he had become the first eyewitness of a major coronal mass ejection or cme and it was headed straight for earth 17 hours later the night sky in north america lit up like the day aurora borealis typically seen near the north pole were visible in miami and cuba and as far south as colombia in the southern hemisphere aurora australis were visible north of brisbane a few hours later on september 2nd the most powerful solar storm ever recorded crashed into the earth's atmosphere our magnetic field was immediately overpowered and created chaos around the world telegraph lines were shorting out in europe and north america equipment was throwing sparks and some burst into flames telegraph operators were burned or jolted with electric shocks the word went out to telegraph operators to shut down the equipment they did but even disconnected from their power supplies everything still worked in fact telegraphs were more powerful than ever nobody had ever seen anything like this before this became known as the carrington event and at the time scientists thought this was a unique phenomenon well was it unique nope it's happened before it's happened since and it will happen again and when it does it could be the worst natural disaster in human history [Music] in 1859 the connection between the sun and the earth's magnetic field wasn't well understood but at the same time carrington saw the eruption the q observatory in london reported a large magnetic disturbance in the ionosphere this allowed scientists to correctly link geomagnetic storms with solar activity like flares solar wind and coronal mass ejections the sun's outer atmosphere the corona is structured by strong magnetic fields sometimes these fields become twisted slowly building up energy like winding a spring when these magnetic fields finally realign that energy is released which causes a solar flare or an ejection well flares and cmes can happen at the same time but they aren't the same thing a solar flare is basically a flash of light they're relatively small and take place in the lower solar atmosphere cmes on the other hand are huge sometimes bigger than the sun itself a cme launches billions of tons of superheated plasma into space at several million miles per hour cmes happen all over the sun's surface and most of the time they drift harmlessly into space but sometimes cmes come our way small ones we don't notice on the ground we're fine our atmosphere absorbs the cosmic radiation and our magnetic field deflects the sun's plasma into the poles which fall through the atmosphere causing auroras but just like the earth's weather can vary from gentle to extreme so does the weather on the sun on average cmes happen two or three times a day but once or twice every hundred years the sun creates super storms that hit the earth and when they do the effects can range from inconvenient to catastrophic [Music] there's evidence of solar super storms going back a long time ice core samples show powerful solar storms hit the earth several times between 7000 and 5000 bc in 774 a. d an extreme solar storm called the miyake event caused the largest rise in carbon 14 levels ever recorded in 993 a.

d a storm left evidence in tree trunks that archaeologists still use to date ancient wood materials and this is one of the ways they confirmed that the norris arrived in north america 500 years before columbus 1052 1279 more storms more spikes in carbon in 1582 1730 and 1770 solar storms caused aurora to be seen all around the world turning night into day and there are dozens of reports like this throughout history but in those reports the solar storms are nothing more than oddities why didn't people freak out humans don't like chains well sure they frightened some people who thought the world was ending or the gods were angry but the storms didn't cause any damage but when the carrington event happened in 1859 civilization was doing something new we started using machines and electricity to operate them and that's where the story goes from science lesson the hollywood disaster movie a solar storm can induce current in anything that conducts electricity this can be the atmosphere the ocean and even certain types of rock though conductivity is pretty low but electrical wires solar storms love those and modern civilization is absolutely covered by and dependent on millions of miles of wires that cover the earth a large enough solar storm can overload power grids destroy transformers and cause entire grids to fail and this actually happened in 1989 the earth was hit by a solar storm that disrupted radio signals across russia oh the russians had to be annoyed oh they were at first they thought american spies were jamming their signals then they noticed their satellites were unresponsive several satellites were drifting for hours the space shuttle discovery suffered sensor malfunctions the toronto stock exchange went down and suddenly millions of people in quebec province were put in total blackout for nine hours in 2003 another storm put millions of people in the u. s and canada in darkness for 12 hours and the solar storms of 1989 and 2003 were a fraction of the strength of the carrington event so what would happen if we were hit with a storm as strong as or stronger than the carrington event yeah i'm guessing uh not good not good at all [Music] picture this you're on a family vacation driving across the country to see uh minnesota biggest ball of twine in minnesota fine [Music] anyway you've got the radio on but it starts to get staticky this is how it begins in the ionosphere shortwave radio has become overwhelmed with electromagnetic interference signals aren't getting through no vhf no uhf uhf might be weird you're a little obsessed yeah i'm obsessed ship-to-shore communication is disrupted planes using vlf signals are knocked off course air traffic control goes dark and planes go blind now it's a good thing you're on a driving vacation because airline passengers flying high in the atmosphere just received over a year's dose of radiation in an instant astronauts in space receive an even higher dose chances of developing cancer increase tenfold as the radiation has already begun unwinding strands of their dna this was just the initial burst called the precursor stage these high energy particles move at the speed of light so there's not much warning but a coronal mass ejection moves a little more slowly it hasn't hit yet the worst is yet to come solar radiation continues to pummel the earth the atmosphere is saturated by high energy particles the earth's magnetic field stretches as the plasma tries to strip it away you look at your dashboard your gps is acting weird it can't orient itself then it loses signal altogether but this is happening to every gps system everywhere around the world as radiation tears through thousands of satellites in orbit shorting out their circuits and frying their electronics this is more than just an inconvenient glitch affecting your vacation global supply chains begin to fail and within hours they will crumble completely military communication which relies on microwaves fails radar is disrupted weapon systems become useless and then it gets worse [Music] by now a few hours into the event governments are aware of what's happening but there's no way to communicate with the citizens all telecommunications including emergency services go offline back in your car you're on a call with a friend describing what's happening your friend also reports weird technical issues and mentions the stock market just went offline but you're having trouble hearing them your phone keeps losing the call and as people around the world all experience these strange events simultaneously they saturate cell towers but it doesn't matter nobody's phone can get a signal not even satellite phones work after an hour or so you start to get concerned and decide to pull off the highway maybe this is a good time to fill up your tank grab lunch and try to figure out what's happening when you pull into the gas station the line is already a quarter mile long gas pumps aren't working there's chaos because credit cards won't work atms are offline well can i use my bitcoin nope your crypto wallet is dark hard drives around the world have been wiped clean bye bye blockchain and during these last few hours of confusion solar radiation has continued to build in the ionosphere the earth's magnetic field is stretched hundreds of thousands of miles into space and when the last of the sun's plasma passes through the earth its magnetic field suddenly snaps back like a rubber band and all of that energy built up in the ionosphere slams into the surface at once then things get really bad power stations around the world are overwhelmed the failures cascade through every country on earth leaving entire continents in darkness power lines and transformers are set ablaze network cables both above the ground and deep under the ocean go down all at once the entire internet goes dark now back at the gas station someone from your family complains that the restroom water isn't working turns out water isn't running anywhere pumping stations and water treatment centers are offline you hear a loud crash behind you there's a six-car collision where a traffic light stopped working looking down the street you see that no traffic lights are working anywhere not here not back at home not anywhere there's no power no water no fuel and this is just the first few hours from here things get even worse far worse there have been a number of studies outlining solar storm worst case scenarios and each study is scarier than the next if the carrington event or worse something stronger happened now it would take months or even years to get back to normal it's been estimated that some power grids could take up to 10 years to repair you could prioritize water facilities hospitals and emergency services but you'd still have millions of people without power for months planes would have to be grounded trains too would have to wait some cars would be okay but not all of them electric cars are great but without charging stations you'll miss that old gas guzzler still there would be no traffic control system now this might be okay in rural areas but in a big city it's a disaster one study warned about how the destruction of the supply chain and lack of refrigeration would cause worldwide food riots no heat no air conditioning no sewage disposal banking transactions require power network access and satellite uplink without these the global financial system would be in ruins right now there are over nineteen 000 satellites orbiting the earth and many of those would be adrift solar storms cause what's known as satellite drag and this is where the earth's atmosphere expands and starts tugging on low orbiting objects if we can't restore power to those they would start falling back down to the earth one by one but a strong enough storm would burn out of satellite circuit boards so there's no way to save it according to another study a severe enough solar storm would cause a complete breakdown of society most governments would have to impose martial law immediately and many governments would simply collapse remember those warnings of 2012 oh yeah the world was supposed well in july it almost did [Music] in july 2012 the largest cma in a century missed the earth by nine days that was the luckiest thing to happen to our species in hundreds of years if that solar storm hit us a quarter of the earth's population could have been without power for weeks 160 million americans would be in the dark for months we would still be recovering from the aftermath today damage in the u. s alone would have cost trillions of dollars and that storm happened in the middle of summer how many thousands of people would die around the world without heat for an entire winter nine days that's all that stood between us and an instant 200 year thrust backward in technology that would have changed all of our lives we had the good news part of the video yet this is getting stressful well nasa's solar terrestrial relations observatory spacecraft called stereo launched in 2006 and it can spot a cme almost immediately but oh no but the stereo spacecraft can't determine the cme's magnetic field turns out that's a key piece of data if the cme's magnetic field is aligned with the earth's it just bounces off magnets repel when their poles are aligned but you've heard the expression opposites attract if the magnetic fields of the cme and the earth are not aligned the cme strips away our protection which means disaster now the advanced composition explorer sits about 900 000 miles from the earth and this satellite can detect the cme's magnetic field which gives us how much time to prepare about half an hour that's it that means we have 30 minutes for planes to be grounded for satellites to be put into safe mode and grids to be powered down everyone has to go dark and then we just wait it out and hope for the best now on average there's a four percent chance of a severe solar storm in any given year and a 0.

7 percent chance of a carrington level event but every 11 years the sun enters a period of peak activity called a solar maximum then the odds get much worse well we're currently in solar cycle 25 which began in 2019 and is expected to peak in 2025.