Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Space Earth Sun Microsystems

Radioactive Particles From Huge Solar Storm Found In Greenland (theguardian.com) 54

Traces of an enormous solar storm that battered the atmosphere and showered Earth in radioactive particles more than 2,500 years ago have been discovered under the Greenland ice sheet. The Guardian reports: Scientists studying ice nearly half a kilometer beneath the surface found a band of radioactive elements unleashed by a storm that struck the planet in 660BC. It was at least 10 times more powerful than any recorded by instruments set up to detect such events in the past 70 years, and as strong as the most intense known solar storm, which hit Earth in AD775. The discovery means that the worst-case scenarios used in risk planning for serious space weather events underestimate how powerful solar storms can be.

Raimund Muscheler, a professor of quaternary sciences at Lund University in Sweden, and his team analyzed two ice cores drilled from the Greenland ice sheet and found that both contained spikes in isotopes of beryllium and chlorine that date back to about 660BC. The material appears to be the radioactive remnants of a solar storm that battered the atmosphere. The scientists calculate that the storm sent at least 10 billion protons per square centimeter into the atmosphere. "A solar proton event of such magnitude occurring in modern times could result in severe disruption of satellite-based technologies, high frequency radio communication and space-based navigation systems," they write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Radioactive Particles From Huge Solar Storm Found In Greenland

Comments Filter:
  • by Anonymous Coward

    Clean your toys off the yard, sun! Even the neighbours are complaining!

  • Can you imagine being in transit for eight months on the way to Mars only to get severely toasted in the middle?

    Sounds like a crappy way to die.
    • by quenda ( 644621 )

      Yes, the risk is well known.
      All interstellar spacecraft will have a storm shelter. Even the ISS, protected by the magnetosphere, has one.

    • Can you imagine being in transit for eight months on the way to Mars only to get severely toasted in the middle?

      I think I'd prefer that to finding out the earth got hit while I was half way to/from Mars.

      • by Pyramid ( 57001 )

        "I think I'd prefer that to finding out the earth got hit while I was half way to/from Mars."

        You wouldn't. It's doubtful anyone on Earth would be able to tell those en-route with most technology fried.

  • Well we missed a bullet in 2012 - more where that came from!
  • The scientists calculate that the storm sent at least 10 billion protons per square centimeter into the atmosphere.

    That number is hard to comprehend. What would it be in Libraries of Congress per square furlong?

    • Tough question, but only because "Library of Congress" is an ill-defined unit of mass. If we just look at the ~32 million books in their collection, assuming they have an average mass of 0.5kg/book, we're talking 16 million kg. Meanwhile a proton masses 1.7*10^-27kg

      So: (10^10protons/cm^2) * (4.047*10^8 cm^2 / 1 furlong^2) * (1.7*10^-27kg / 1 proton) * (1 Library of Congress / 16*10^6 kg), make sure the units all cancel, and..

      425*10^-18 Libraries of Congress per square furlong.

      You're welcome. :-D

    • "That number is hard to comprehend. What would it be in Libraries of Congress per square furlong?"

      *Square* furlong? What are you? a Vogon?

      Look *around* you: you'll never look "square" you. Therefore, the proper measure would be "Libraries of Congress per round furlong" -Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person!

  • by DavenH ( 1065780 ) on Wednesday March 13, 2019 @07:41AM (#58266590)
    What a year. From a contemporary chronicle:

    A.D. 774. This year the Northumbians banished their king, Alred, from York at Easter-tide; and chose Ethelred, the son of Mull, for their lord, who reigned four winters. This year also appeared in the heavens a red crucifix, after sunset; the Mercians and the men of Kent fought at Otford; and wonderful serpents were seen in the land of the South-Saxons.

  • It's a hell of time in the Earth social time.
    It was during this time that Zoroaster https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] begun it's religion in Iran.
    At the same time, in another part of the middle east, Josia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org], reform the pantheon of the judaism in a monotheism using their god of war, Yahweh, as the only god in their religion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • Did this storm affect people or other life and how?

Don't tell me how hard you work. Tell me how much you get done. -- James J. Ling

Working...