Cosmic Fire
This episode airs in Canada on April 26 at 9 pm on HistoryTelevision.
What would happen of the “perfect storm” erupted on the surface of the Sun?
This single question is focusing the minds of some of the world’s finest space scientists, because the more we learn about weather on the Sun, the more we learn that our star - the source of sustenance and life – may also be the source of our destruction. In 1859, a massive solar storm known as a Coronal Mass Ejection caused an unprecedented worldwide display of colour and beauty in the form of the aurora borealis, or Northern Lights. But it spread havoc through the newly established telegraph system.
Now, scientists believe that if a storm on the same scale were to happen again, it could destroy us. One hundred and fifty years of technological progress have made us highly vulnerable. Our vital systems, from food and water to medicine and communications, depend on vast national and international electricity grids – the very networks a “perfect” solar storm would attack and destroy.
And, thanks to cutting edge CGI, it’s now possible to envisage the destruction such a storm would rain on the Earth - a beautiful but deadly torrent of high energy solar particles.
The story opens in Washington, where a high-powered group of scientists gathers to discuss the looming solar threat. In their deliberations, much of the information comes from our knowledge of the events of 1859. That’s the specialty of astronomer and historian Stuart Clark, who reconstructs the spectacular events of September 2nd 1859 – when Englishman Richard Carrington became the first live witness of an explosion of storms on the solar surface.
Clark then travels to China to witness a total eclipse of the Sun. Leading solar astronomer Jay Pasachoff is also present – as he always is for an eclipse. For Pasachoff, it’s a unique chance to explore the solar corona – the Sun’s fiery upper atmosphere. The corona is millions of degrees hotter than the Sun itself – and if Pasachoff can figure out why, it may be the first step in explaining and possibly predicting Coronal Mass Ejections – the explosions that spit fire at the Earth in the form of high energy particles.
Meanwhile, NASA space scientist Bruce Tsurutani is in the Nevada desert – in search of ice. He believes ice samples extracted above the Arctic Circle – and kept in cold storage in Nevada – may be “time capsules” with an indelible record of the 1859 event. If he can detect nitrate molecules, the signature of a solar storm, then scientists will have a powerful technique for calculating just how often these huge storms occur.
And, as if a storm on our own star was not enough, Joseph Dwyer thinks the utter destruction of a star on the other side of the galaxy can also influence life on Earth. This most cataclysmic event – a supernova – fires high-energy particles across space, that wind their way to Earth over hundreds of millions of years. Dwyer’s theory is that these particles – cosmic rays – are the spark that causes lightning. The bolt that kills a man on Earth could be the direct result of an exploding star, half a million years ago.
But as the scientific investigations continue, a perfect solar storm is already brewing. In a lavish sequence of drama and CGI, a Coronal Mass Ejection blasts from the solar surface. In just 18 hours, it will smash into the Earth’s atmosphere. On the ground, space experts and the ordinary public are equally helpless, as they wait for destruction to arrive…