If an asteroid big enough to knock modern
civilization back to the 18th century appeared out of deep space and
buzzed the Earth-Moon system, the near-miss would be instant worldwide headline
news.
On July 22nd, 2014 Earth experienced
a close shave just as perilous, but most newspapers didn't mention it. The
"impactor" was an extreme solar storm, the most powerful in as much
as 150+ years. "If it had hit, we would still be picking up the
pieces," says Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado
Today on Far Future Horizons we again explore the dangers posed by a sudden devastating electromagnetic pulse (EMP) emanating from the Sun with the acclaimed documentary series Naked Science – Solar Storm.
More than one hundred and fifty years ago a solar storm fried telegraph lines across the world during a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) widely known to astronomers as the Carrington Event.
