Radioactive particles from huge solar storm found in Greenland
Discovery raises questions about emergency plans in place for severe space weather
Ian Sample Science editor
@iansample
Mon 11 Mar 2019 15.00 EDT
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.
Scientists studying ice nearly half a kilometre 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.
Raimund Muscheler, a professor of quaternary sciences at Lund University in Sweden, said: “What our research shows is that the observational record over the past 70 years does not give us a complete picture of what the sun can do.”
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/mar/11/radioactive-particles-from-huge-solar-storm-found-in-greenland