To the Solar storms have affected Earth for thousands of years : the phenomenon happens when there is a release of energy from the Sun that travels through space until it reaches the magnetic sphere around the Earth, disturbing our atmosphere.
The most common effects of a solar storm tend to be related to the way they affect communication infrastructure, such as satellites, radio or even the electrical grid. But, how to identify the occurrence of a solar storm in periods before technology? Scientists have discovered the answer inside trees.
A published study in the journal Communications Earth & Environment discovered that a extreme solar storm hit our planet in 664 BC causing ancient trees to accumulate carbon-14, a naturally occurring radioactive variant of carbon, in the rings of their trunks.
As solar activity increases, more protons bombard the Earth’s atmosphere, triggering chemical reactions that increase the number of radioactive isotopes. This change is recorded in the ring formed by the tree that year.
To be sure that the cause of the increase in carbon-14 in trees was a solar storm, the researchers compared this data with the presence of peaks of another isotope, beryllium-10, found in ice cores taken from the depths of glaciers. Rain and snow capture this isotope and trap it in ice sheets.
“If ice cores from the North Pole and South Pole show a spike in the isotope beryllium-10 in a specific year, corresponding to the increase in radiocarbon in tree rings, we know there was a solar storm,” explained Irina Panyushkina of the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research at the University of Arizona.
According to the researcher, if solar storms of this magnitude occurred today, they “would have cataclysmic effects on communication technology”.
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This content was originally published in Ancient trees reveal “cataclysmic” solar storm 2,000 years ago on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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