Earth’s Strongest Solar Storm Ever Hit In 12350 BCE – Could It Have Been A Fabled Super Solar Storm?

Solar storms can be scary . They have the power to disrupt our tech , causeblackouts , and even impact us directly . Still , nothing straight observed nor in living memory might quite compare with new findings from researchers – a bill of radiation , consistent with an extreme solar particle event ( ESPE ) more acute than anything previously known on record .

The most intense upshot on record is the January 20 , 2005 , solar storm . If you were on a plane over the southerly polar realm ( which received a good chunk of that radiation ) , you ’d have received the distinctive one-year cosmic radiation dose at sea levelin just one hour . If you were on a airplane in 12350 BCE , you ’d have receive the annual dose of radiation in less than 8 second .

“ compare to the largest event of the modern satellite epoch — the 2005 particle storm — the ancient 12350 BC event was over 500 time more intense , according to our estimates , ” lead generator Dr Kseniia Golubenko , from the University of Oulu in Finland , tell in astatement .

The famous Carrington case , the most potent on record , was not keep company by a solar molecule violent storm , so it is difficult to compare the two . There is a different comparison that was fundamental for this work : the775 CE event , which was also very muscular .

The evidence for both come from tree rings , but for this older upshot , investigator had to fight with the complexity of gauge tree diagram rings under frosty shape . To do this , they developed a new clime interpersonal chemistry model , SOCOL:14C - ex-wife , and validated it with other known events . With this model , they guess that the 12350 BCE event was 18 percent more intense than the 775 CE upshot .

“ The ancient event in 12350 BC is the only known extreme solar particle event outdoors of the Holocene epoch , the past tense ~12,000 years of static warm climate , ” add up Golubenko . “ Our new modeling lifts the exist limit to the Holocene and expand our ability to analyse carbon 14 data even for frozen climate conditions . ”

It is possible for the Sun to make a superflare issue , some simplistic early manakin paint a picture , establish on other sunlight - same wizard , with a possible natural event pace of maybeone every 6,000 eld . Could those two events be the measured essence of a superflare ? More body of work is needed to find out .

“ This event establishes a new bad - case scenario , ” Golubenko noted . “ Understanding its scale is critical for appraise the risk stick by succeeding solar storm to innovative base like satellites , office power system , and communicating system . ”

The study is publish in the journalEarth and Planetary Science Letters .