~ The largest ever solar super-storm on record occurred in 1859 and is known as the Carrington Event, named after the English astronomer Richard Carrington who spotted the preceding solar flare. This massive CME released about 1022 kJ of energy - the equivalent to 10 billion Hiroshima bombs exploding at the same time - and hurled around a trillion kilos of charged particles towards the Earth at speeds of up to 3000 km/s. However, its impact on the human population was relatively benign as our electronic infrastructure at the time amounted to no more than about 124,000 miles (200,000 km) of telegraph lines. Mr Dale says these types of events are not just a threat, but inevitable. Nasa scientists have predicted that the Earth is in the path of a Carrington-level event every 150 years on average. This means that we are currently five years overdue - and that the likelihood of one occurring in the next decade is as high as 12 per cent.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 22:07:44 +0000
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