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A massive solar storm could wipe out almost all of our modern technology — and we'd have just hours to prepare

solar flare sun

In 1859, an invisible wave crashed into the Earth.





Amazingly, way back in 1859, before all that monitoring equipment was put in place, an astronomer spotted the flare before the storm reached Earth.

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At 11:18 a.m. on September 1 of that year, the English astronomer Richard Carrington stood in his private observatory recording sunspots on an image of the sun projected through his telescope onto a small screen.






As our world has grown more reliant on electronics in the last century and a half, humanity has had few glimpses of the potential dangers of solar storms to our new infrastructure. NASA records three instances dating back to 1972 of solar storms significantly disrupting daily life.

The latest example came in 2005, when X-rays from a solar flare disrupted satellite-to-ground communication and the GPS system for about 10 minutes — threatening satellite-guided air, sea, and land travel.

But none of those storms come close to the scale of the 1859 monster, known as the Carrington Event.

If a Carrington Event happened today, the world would likely have to deal with the simultaneous loss of GPS, cellphone reception, and much of the power grid. The global aircraft fleet might have to coordinate an unprecedented mass grounding without satellite guidance. Unguarded electronic infrastructure could fail outright.


"Humans in space would be in peril, too," NASA wrote. "Spacewalking astronauts might have only minutes after the first flash of light to find shelter from energetic solar particles following close on the heels of those initial photons. Their spacecraft would probably have adequate shielding; the key would be getting inside in time."

The best available estimates suggest a modern Carrington Event would cost humanity $1 trillion to $2 trillion in the first year and take another four to 10 years to achieve full recovery. A 2007 NASA estimate found that the damage to the satellite fleet would cost between $30 billion and $70 billion.

Fortunately, Carrington Event-level storms seem pretty rare, occurring perhaps once in 500 years. But we have no reliable way of predicting when the next one could happen.

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