The Disappearing Spoon: a science history podcast with Sam Kean · Sam Kean, Bleav

The Doom Lurking inside Trees

November 4, 2024·18 min·1 clip

Nine million people were plunged into darkness when Quebec's power grid crashed in 90 seconds from a storm that began in outer space.

This episode explores the history and science of solar storms, from the 1859 Carrington Event that caused telegraph systems to fail and auroras to appear in Venezuela, to the 1989 storm that knocked out Quebec's power grid. It reveals how tree ring research has uncovered evidence of even more massive ancient solar storms and explains why these space weather events pose a catastrophic threat to modern technology.

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