World’s oldest trees reveal the largest

solar storm in history

While humanity reckons with many problems here on Earth — war,

political turmoil, an ongoing pandemic, all alongside the energy,
climate, and water crises — it’s important to remember just how
relentless the Universe can be. While earthquakes, tornadoes,
volcanoes, hurricanes and other natural disasters haven’t exactly
ceased in the meantime, there’s a looming threat for which we’re
completely unprepared: a solar storm. Without any mitigations,
widespread electrical fires and power station failures could come
with damages costing of trillions of dollars, impacting the lives of of
billions.

Historically, the largest recorded solar event occurred back in

1859: the Carrington event. But more than a millennium prior to
that, an even stronger cosmic event struck Earth. We know this
because, back in the years spanning 774–775, there was a
tremendous spike in the presence of carbon-14 in Earth’s
atmosphere, and the evidence is found in tree rings all across the
world. After a full decade investigating the possible causes of this
spike, the scientific conclusion we’ve reached is that the Sun was to
blame. A solar storm from more than 1200 years ago may have been
the most powerful one recorded in natural history. The Earth, as a
result, may be at an even greater risk from a worst-case solar storm
than anyone thought possible.
The science of solar astronomy — where we directly observe the Sun
— is a relatively young one. Although sunspots had been referred to
and recorded since the 4th century BC, they were only identified as
being inherent to the Sun during the time of Galileo in the early
1600s. The observations that these spots not only appeared on the
Sun, but migrated across its surface as it rotated, were the first to
robustly challenge Aristotle’s notion that the Sun was perfect:
without either flaw or motion.

The connection of sunspots to solar flares wouldn’t be made until

1859, when solar astronomer Richard Carrington, while tracking a
large, irregular sunspot region, observed what he called a “white
light flare” that lasted for approximately five minutes. 18 hours later,
the largest geomagnetic storm in recent history occurred on Earth,
resulting in:

 worldwide auroral displays, including at the equator,

 miners awakening in the middle of the night, thinking it was

dawn,

 reports of aurorae so bright that newspapers could be read by

their light,

 and electrical systems, such as telegraphs, began sparking and

igniting fires, even when they were completely disconnected and
unplugged from any power source.

Given the tremendous development, subsequently, of humanity’s

electric and electronic infrastructure, it’s easy to see how a similar
event, if it were to occur today, could lead to an unprecedented
catastrophe.

There have been smaller solar storms, subsequently, that have

impacted humanity. A three-day geomagnetic storm in 1921 sparked
a number of fires worldwide, including near New York City’s Grand
Central Terminal. A 1960 solar event caused widespread radio
disruption, and then 1972’s solar storms caused major electrical and
communications grid disturbances, even causing the accidental
detonation of numerous naval mines. Meanwhile 1989’s
geomagnetic storm caused massive power outages and substantial
damage to the electrical grid.

In July of 2012, the largest solar eruption since 1859 occurred, with
intrinsic properties comparable to the Carrington event.
Fortunately, the ejecta missed Earth as the Sun was rotated out-of-
position; if the outburst had occurred 9 days earlier, it would likely
have caused the most expensive natural disaster in human history.

What’s less clear, however, is how it’s possible to reconstruct what

occurred more than 1000 years ago, when solar storms had no
negative consequences for humanity and solar astronomy was a
practically non-existent science. What was once mere guesswork
suddenly became a scientific detective story thanks to an unlikely
witness: ancient cedar trees.
Trees, quite famously, grow from the inside-out, producing a new set
of rings in their trunks with each passing year. The past 3000 years,
in particular, have been particularly well-documented thanks to
a landmark data set synthesized from tree-ring data that spans the
globe. Carbon is one of the most important elements found in all
organic matter, derived either from the air (for most plants) or from
the carbon-based matter consumed (by most animals) for food.
Carbon comes in three varieties:

 carbon-12, with 6 protons and 6 neutrons in its nucleus, which

accounts for most naturally occurring carbon,

 carbon-13, with 6 protons and 7 neutrons in its nucleus,

representing about 1.1% of naturally occurring carbon,

 and carbon-14, with 6 protons and 8 neutrons in its nucleus,

which is radioactive, possessing a half-life of about 5700 years.

If the only source of carbon were the material that Earth initially
formed from some 4.5 billion years ago, there would be no carbon-
14 at all, as it would have all decayed away. But there is carbon-14 on
Earth, as approximately 1 out of every one trillion carbon atoms has
eight neutrons inside its nucleus. We didn’t figure out why until the
20th century: because the Earth is constantly being bombarded by
high-energy particles from space.

From all sorts of cosmic sources — stars (including the Sun), white
dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes, and even galaxies beyond the
Milky Way — high-energy particles are emitted, and some of them
collide with Earth’s atmosphere. When they do, they strike the
atoms that are present there: mostly nitrogen and oxygen. Those
collisions often wind up producing a cascade of particles, including
photons, electrons, positrons (the antimatter counterparts of
electrons), unstable particles like mesons and muons, along with the
common and familiar protons and neutrons.

The neutron, when it comes to carbon-14, is all-important. Most of

Earth’s atmosphere (78%) is made of nitrogen gas: a diatomic
molecule containing two nitrogen atoms apiece. Nitrogen typically
possesses 7 protons and 7 neutrons in its nucleus, but when a
neutron strikes it, there’s a finite probability of a replacement
reaction occurring, with that neutron replacing one of the protons.
Whenever this occurs, the nucleus transmutes from a nitrogen atom
(with 7 protons and 7 neutrons) into a carbon atom (with 6 protons
and 8 neutrons): specifically, a carbon-14 atom.