Madrid, 9 (European Press)

A similar event today would be catastrophic for modern technological society: it would likely wipe out telecommunications and satellite systems, cause widespread power outages, and cost billions of euros.

A team of researchers from the College de France, the University of Aix-Marseille and the University of Leeds, among others, measured radiocarbon levels in ancient trees preserved on the eroded banks of the Drozier River, near Gap in the southern Alps of France. They publish their findings in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Physical and Engineering-Mathematical Sciences

The logs, which are subfossils (remains that have not completed the fossilization process), were cut into small individual rings. Analysis of these individual episodes has identified an unprecedented increase in radiocarbon levels that occurred specifically 14,300 years ago. Comparable to this radiocarbon pico with Beryl’s medicines, a chemical element that is encuentra in the roots of Groenlandia, the propone that the pico is used for a solar torment that exposes the energized parts to the atmosfer. a de the earth.

“Radiocarbon is constantly produced in the upper atmosphere through a series of reactions initiated by cosmic rays,” Edouard Bard, professor of climate and ocean evolution at the College de France and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “More recently, scientists have discovered that extreme solar events, including Solar flares and coronal mass ejections can also create short-lived bursts of energetic particles that are preserved as huge spikes in radiocarbon production that occur over the course of just one year.

Tim Heaton, professor of applied statistics in the School of Mathematics at the University of Leeds, said: “Severe solar storms can have huge impacts on Earth. These superstorms can permanently damage transformers in our power grids, causing blackouts.” “It could also cause permanent damage to the satellites we all depend on for navigation and communications, rendering them unusable. It would also create serious radiation risks for astronauts.”

Nine of these intense solar storms, known as Miyake events, have been determined to have occurred within the past 15,000 years. The most recent confirmed Miyake events occurred in 993 AD and 774 AD, however, this newly identified 14,300-year-old storm is the largest on record: about twice the size of those two storms.

The exact nature of the Miyake events is still not well known because they have never been observed effectively directly. They stress that we still have a lot to learn about the behavior of the Sun and the risks it poses to society on Earth. We don’t know what causes such intense solar storms, how often they might happen, or whether we can somehow predict them.

Professor Bard said: “Direct instrumental measurements of solar activity began in the 17th century with counting sunspots. Today, we also obtain detailed records using ground-based observatories, space probes and satellites. However, all these instruments are short-term.” The records are “carbon “Radiometers measured in tree rings, and used with beryllium in polar ice cores, provide the best way to understand the Sun’s behavior in distant times.”

The largest directly observed solar storm occurred in 1859 and is known as the Carrington event. It caused enormous disruption on Earth: it destroyed telegraph machines and created a night twilight so bright that birds began to sing, thinking that the sun had begun to rise. However, the Miyake events (including the recently discovered 14,300-year-old storm) would have been astonishingly larger.