A repeat of 14,000-year-old solar storm could cripple modern tech
What's the story
A team of scientists has found evidence of a massive solar storm that hit Earth more than 14,000 years ago.
The event, dubbed a "Miyake Event," was so powerful that its effects can still be observed in tree rings today.
The findings, to be published in the July 2025 issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters, indicate the ancient storm dwarfs any recorded solar storm in modern history.
It could cause massive disruption to modern technology if it happened again.
Event identification
Miyake events marked by carbon-14 spikes in tree rings
Miyake Events are characterized by sharp spikes in carbon-14 levels in tree rings.
Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope formed when solar particles collide with Earth's atmosphere.
The first of these events was discovered by Fusa Miyake in 2012, and at least six such events have been confirmed since, including those in 774 CE and 993 CE.
The 12,350 BCE Miyake Event is unique due to its scale and the challenges it posed for scientists trying to interpret it.
Interpretation hurdles
Unique challenges of the 12,350 BCE Miyake event
The carbon-14 spike from the 12,350 BCE Miyake Event was detected in Scots Pine trees along France's Drouzet River.
This was corroborated by matching beryllium-10 levels in Greenland ice cores, confirming the storm's global reach.
However, interpreting these signals proved difficult as it occurred during the Ice Age, a period with vastly different atmospheric and climatic conditions than most other Miyake Events during the stable Holocene epoch.
Intensity revelation
Study reveals storm's intensity
To analyze the ancient data, researchers Kseniia Golubenko and Ilya Usoskin from the University of Oulu, Finland, created a specialized chemistry-climate model.
Their study found that the 12,350 BCE storm unleashed a solar particle bombardment 500 times stronger than the biggest solar particle storm recorded by satellites in 2005.
This discovery not only redefines potential worst-case scenarios for space weather but also opens up possibilities for studying older solar storms.