EVENT OF HORIZON

Ian Evenden explains how the Sun could one day take out our electronics and communications technology in mere moments

- Ian Evenden

EARTH, SEPTEMBER 1ST, 1859. Colors flash through the night sky above New England, gold miners in the Rocky Mountains are woken by the brightness of the Northern Lights, visible as far south as the Caribbean. Telegraph operators across the world receive electric shocks from their equipment, which continues to operate, despite being disconnected from the power supply.

The Sun, August 31st, 1859. A complex system of magnetic field lines suddenly twists, releasing a large quantity of plasma into space. This takes 17 hours to cross the 93 million miles to the Earth, which is at just the right place in its orbit to be hit by what today we’d call a coronal mass ejection.

The largest geomagnetic storm on record, the Carrington Event caused widespread electrical disruption and power blackouts in an electrical grid that was primitive compared to today’s complex system.

Should it happen again, the consequences could be catastrophic. A 2013 research project from Lloyds of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research in the United States estimated the cost to the US alone could be $2.6 trillion.

At the peak of its activity, the Sun belches out as many as three coronal mass ejections every day. One only just missed us in 2012, and if it struck today, the damage would be incalculable.

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