A fury is building on the surface of the sun.
Jets of super hot gas,
towering waves of fire,
the most violent explosions in our solar system.
Science is now taking us on an extraordinary journey
into our star,
to explore the power
and rising threat
of solar superstorms.
We think of the sun as a constant,
a tranquil vision eternal.
And yet, beneath the calm,
a storm is gathering force.
It's September 1st,
the year 1859.
The English astronomer, Richard Carrington
notes signs of turbulence rising across
the surface of our star.
It's the beginning of one of the most
violent solar outbursts on record.
Searing jets fall tens of thousands
of kilometers into space.
Vast roiling towers of super hot gas billow upward.
Temperatures soar to millions of degrees Celsius.
Amid the turmoil, a strange dark region appears.
A cluster of sun spots,
now estimated to have been 20 times
the size of the Earth.
From this region, the sun erupts
in what scientists call a coronal mass ejection.
Over a billion tons of solar particles
head in our direction.
Based on the timing of Carrington's observations,
scientists now estimate that the solar blast
traveled at over eight million kilometers per hour.
Observers around the world greeted its arrival
as day dissolved to night.
Solar particles excited oxygen and nitrogen molecules
in the upper atmosphere, turning the night aglow.
The northern and southern lights are usually visible
only at the poles.
That night, they stretched all the way
to the tropics.
Watching from a campsite in the Colorado Rockies,
a journalist described an auroral light so bright,
that one could easily read common print.
An observer in Havana, Cuba
reported that the sky appeared stained with blood
and in a state of general conflagration.
But the spectacle had a dark side.
Electricity began to surge through telegraph wires.
Some operators received shocks,
transformers blew.
To scientists, the culprit was soon clear.
It was the sun and associated forces
of electricity and magnetism.
It was our first warning that our star
can threaten the way we live and communicate.
While solar storms are not dangerous to people,
they can pose a significant threat
to our increasingly power and technology dependent world.
The risk starts with the fleet of satellites
that orbit the Earth,
as well as the sprawling complex of air travel
dependent on satellite GPS navigation.
It extends to a vast network of electronic
phone and internet wires that meet together
and define modern life.
A recent estimate published by
the National Academy of Sciences
held that an outburst like the one in 1859
could cause damage of one to two trillion dollars
in the first year alone,
rivaling the cost of the worst hurricanes or earthquakes.
It's not only the cost of repairing
and replacing damaged components,
but the loss of business and government services
extending over the years it takes to recover.
The more integrated and global
our technological infrastructure becomes,
the more vulnerable it is.
This realization has led scientists
in the last two decades to launch a fleet
of new generation spacecraft
designed to closely monitor the sun.
They've taken up positions in low Earth orbit
and they are circling out in interplanetary space
to track solar activity in unprecedented detail.
With all this data flowing in,
scientists are drawing an increasingly
complex picture of the sun and its inner workings.
Their aim is to predict solar eruptions
more accurately than ever before,
and to usher in a whole new era
in space weather forecasting.
This effort includes a powerful new tool.
Super computer programs or models
that use the laws of physics
to simulate the workings of the universe
including stars like our sun.
To understand the source of the sun's power,
we peer into this virtual telescope
and look back to the early moments of cosmic history.
Within the first 300 million years,
gravity drew the primordial gas into filaments
and dense centers.
The first generation of stars ignited.
Trillions upon trillions of newborn stars
flooded the cosmos with intense ultraviolet light
that heated their surroundings.
Vast patches of hot gas intersected and merged.
The largest stars spread additional heat and radiation
by exploding in supernovas.
This outpouring of energy changed the character
of the universe down to the smallest of scales.
It stripped electrons away from hydrogen atoms,
turning nearly all matter in the universe
into the ultimate cosmic elixir,
an electrified gas known as plasma.
On our planet, plasma can be found
wherever temperatures rise to extremes,
from the red hot core of a flame,
to the white hot flash of a lightning bolt.
The dynamic properties of plasma
account for the energy we see rippling across
the surface of our star.
NASA's orbiting telescope,
the Solar Dynamics Observatory
has given us an extraordinary view
of a wide variety of phenomena,
from fiery jets
and massive white hot flares,
to dazzling loops that rise into
the sun's atmosphere.
To understand how solar plasma can fuel an eruption
on the scale of 1859,
the so-called Carrington Effect,
we must travel deep below its surface.
In the sun's core is a nuclear furnace
heated to 15 million degrees Celsius.
Super hot plasma rises toward the surface
on a journey that can last tens of millions of years.
Scientists have been using super computer models
to simulate this journey.
They have found that as the flow of plasma
reaches the sun's outer layer, the convective zone,
it breaks down into complex swirls and loops.
Near the equator, where the sun rotates quickly,
it forms vast rolling waves.
Because plasma is made up of electrically charged particles,
these churning motions produce magnetic fields.
Shown here in blue,
they thread through the sun's outer layers
like vast rivers of energy.
If the energy in these fields is strong enough,
they may twist or snap, then spiral upward.
This computer model takes us just below the surface.
As the magnetic field pushes through
this hellish region, it forms immense rising arcs.
They become enveloped in electrical currents,
the cloud-like features shown here.
These currents generated by rising and seeking
streams of plasma,
pump energy into the magnetic arcs.
As the arcs stretch upward,
they can draw huge volumes of hot plasma
toward the surface.
Where they burst into the solar atmosphere,
they form so-called active regions.
Active regions can burst forth
in white hot solar flares
that release the energy of over a million hydrogen bombs.
But the magnetic fields that spur this energy release
can also stifle it.
As a result, active regions are often flanked
by sun spots,
where surface temperatures can drop
by as much as 2000 degrees Celsius.
When a cluster of sun spots appears,
it's a sign that magnetic energy
is building below the surface to staggering levels.
This super computer model was created by scientists
to understand the events that can trigger
a coronal mass ejection on the scale of 1859.
It shows magnetic arcs rising hundreds of thousands
of kilometers above the surface,
a sign that electrical energy is coursing through there.
When this energy reaches a critical threshold,
the arcs become unstable.
They unravel suddenly and violently
in a coronal mass ejection.
This has the effect of clearing a hole
in the solar atmosphere.
If the arcs reform, a second eruption moves out
with even greater force and speed.
The great solar storm of 1859
actually hit Earth in several powerful pulses.
The first one produced bright auroras
on Sunday, August 28th.
A second, more energetic blast struck
the following Thursday.
To find out how this plasma actually reaches Earth,
scientists have simulated its approach in one of
the largest solar computer models ever produced.
The solar plasma heads toward our planet
aboard streams of magnetic field shown in blue.
On it's leading edge where it pushes up
against Earth's magnetic field,
turbulence develops.
Cracks begin to open up in Earth's protective armor.
The fissures widen.
Millions of tons of electrified gas
now surge through in jet-like flows
that can engulf the planet.
No one knows exactly why,
but solar magnetic activity rises and falls
in a cycle that lasts about 11 years.
At the peak of this cycle,
the sun can churn out as many as three
coronal mass ejections in a day.
They grace us with spectacles of color and light,
beautiful beyond measure.
They are a reminder of the intimate connection
between our planet and our star.
When auroras crown our atmosphere,
they may stretch hundreds of kilometers into space.
Imagine being able to see them spread
far and wide before you,
like astronauts can aboard
the International Space Station.
The station was built to protect them
from solar radiation.
They are safe as long as they stay inside.
Lately, thanks to high resolution digital cameras,
astronauts have allowed us to share the view
out their windows,
as solar plasma reaches across the void
to paint our skies in greens and blues and reds.
Today, scientists are keeping a close watch
on solar activity
while working to improve forecast models.
With enough advanced warning,
airplanes can be diverted away from the poles,
satellites can be powered down
or turned away from onrushing solar plasma.
On the ground, power grids can be protected
by temporarily shutting them down.
Meanwhile, scientists are racing to add
another line of defense,
knowledge of how and when the sun can threaten us.
Solar storms like the one documented
by Richard Carrington in 1859
are thought to hit Earth about every 150 years.
At that rate, we may be due for another.
With every violent eruption,
the sun relinquishes another clue
and another warning
to brace ourselves
for the next solar superstorm.