00:00Wow, nobody could have predicted this.
00:03Thousands of Airbus planes had to be grounded at once.
00:07Was it a technical glitch, a construction mistake, a human error?
00:11Not at all.
00:13It happened because the plane's computers might get messed up by something coming straight from space.
00:18Something that could cause a terrible disaster and claim hundreds of lives.
00:23Now the thing is, our sun is always shooting out charged particles, like a powerful invisible wind.
00:29And on top of that, we're constantly getting hit by even stronger particles from outside our solar system.
00:35Those are called cosmic rays.
00:37We never feel them, but they're always there.
00:40Most days, they're harmless.
00:42But sometimes, the sun fires off a massive burst, a solar storm.
00:47And that stuff can seriously mess with electronics.
00:50It's also what triggers those insanely bright auroras.
00:54Now because of this risk, Airbus checked around 6,000 planes.
00:59About 5,000 of them needed a simple software update.
01:03But around 900 older planes needed a whole new computer.
01:08According to Airbus, radiation from the sun might have corrupted data that's essential for flight control.
01:14And this issue could have affected many A320 aircraft already in service.
01:19The main problem is a piece of software that calculates the plane's elevation.
01:25If high-energy particles hit the computer at the wrong moment, the hardware can glitch.
01:30And that glitch becomes a software error.
01:33You see, when planes fly high, the air is thinner.
01:36So more space particles get through.
01:38If one of those particles hits a microchip, it can flip a tiny bit.
01:43A zero becomes a one, or a one becomes a zero.
01:46That tiny flip is called a single-event upset.
01:49And it can make electronics act weird.
01:52You can probably imagine the catastrophic outcome an altitude-related mistake can lead to.
01:58Airbus planes are finally getting back to normal after the company rushed out a software fix.
02:03Which was way faster than anyone expected.
02:07By the way, the warning itself came after a JetBlue flight ran into trouble mid-air
02:12when a solar flare may have messed with its flight controls.
02:16That JetBlue plane was flying from Cancun to New Jersey when something suddenly went wrong.
02:22The jet dropped sharply.
02:23It was fast enough that people were thrown around the cabin.
02:26Some passengers hit the ceiling.
02:28Around 15 to 20 people ended up in hospitals.
02:31At 2.19 p.m., the pilots made an emergency landing in Tampa.
02:37Medical teams immediately rushed on board.
02:39JetBlue pulled the plane from service immediately.
02:42And the FAA is now digging into what exactly happened.
02:46In any case, these days, we rely a lot on watching the sun.
02:50There are satellites in space right now whose only job is to track solar tantrums
02:56and warn us before they cause trouble.
02:58Luckily, we're finally heading toward a calmer period of the sun's cycle.
03:02But it never truly quiets down.
03:06Even when our star seems calm, it's still firing particles at us non-stop.
03:12And recently, scientists from several countries found something hidden in ancient tree rings.
03:17A huge jump in radiocarbon dating from about 12,350 BCE, right near the end of the last ice age.
03:26For years, no one could tell how strong this spike really was because there was no good way to model it.
03:33Now, with a new climate chemistry model,
03:36researchers have finally figured out that this thing was the most powerful solar particle storm ever found.
03:41Nothing else in the record even comes close.
03:45The team built a special model.
03:47It's designed to recreate how the atmosphere behaved during glacial times,
03:51letting them study ancient solar storms.
03:55And when they tested the model on the newly discovered event,
03:58they found it was even stronger than the famous AD-775 storm,
04:03which used to be considered the biggest one on record.
04:05Compared to a strong solar storm from 2005,
04:10the ice age event was hundreds of times more intense.
04:14Other big historical storms did happen long ago,
04:16around 994 CE, 663 BCE, 5259 BCE, and 7176 BCE.
04:25Hey, I wasn't around then.
04:27But none of them reached this level.
04:29The researchers also checked the model using wood found in the French Alps
04:34that dates back around 14,300 years.
04:37So the timeline lines up.
04:40Solar particle storms don't happen often.
04:43But when they do, they blast Earth with high-energy particles
04:47that can change the atmosphere and leave clear marks in tree rings.
04:51Even the famous Carrington event of 1859,
04:54which knocked out telegraph lines around the world,
04:56was actually a different kind of solar outburst.
04:59What makes this new discovery stand out
05:02is that it's the only known extreme solar particle event
05:05from before the last 12,000 years of warm climate.
05:09Until now, scientists could only look for such storms inside that window.
05:14But with this new model,
05:16the scientists were finally able to figure out
05:18how strong this ancient solar outburst really was,
05:21when it hit, and what it might have done to Earth.
05:24The model now worked for both warm periods
05:28and for the cold, icy world that existed before it.
05:32That's a big step forward for studying old radiocarbon spikes.
05:36The team focused on how solar particle storms
05:38can pump huge amounts of extra radiocarbon into the atmosphere.
05:43Normally, this type of carbon forms when cosmic rays hit our air.
05:46But during one of these extreme storms,
05:49the amount shoots up fast,
05:51and trees trap that sudden jump inside their rings,
05:54which basically creates a time stamp that survives for thousands of years.
05:59These sharp spikes, known as Miyake events,
06:01have already helped scientists date things
06:03like Viking settlements in North America
06:05and early farming communities in Greece.
06:08This ancient blast sets a new upper limit
06:12for what our star can do.
06:13And it's alarming.
06:15Knowing the size of the event is crucial.
06:18A storm of that scale today could threaten satellites,
06:21mess with communication systems,
06:22and overload power grids.
06:25It gives researchers a clearer picture
06:26of the most extreme kind of space weather
06:29our planet might ever face.
06:31And what it could mean for modern life.
06:35Now, luckily, Earth is wrapped
06:36in a kind of invisible shield
06:38that blocks most of the dangerous particles
06:40the Sun throws at us.
06:42For almost 10 years,
06:43four small NASA spacecraft,
06:45called the MMS mission,
06:47have been flying right along the edge of that shield,
06:50watching how it bends, snaps,
06:52and reacts to the Sun's magnetic forces.
06:55Now, during one of those passes,
06:57the probe caught something nobody expected.
07:00A sharp, twisting bend in Earth's magnetic field.
07:04Scientists call this kind of shape a switchback.
07:07They've seen them near the Sun before,
07:09but never this close to Earth.
07:11Finding one in our space neighborhood
07:13is kind of like spotting a wave curling backwards
07:16in the middle of a calm light.
07:18This switchback showed up in the magneto sheet,
07:21the turbulent zone where the solar wind
07:23slams into Earth's shield and gets pushed aside.
07:26Inside the twist,
07:28the probes picked up fast, energetic electrons
07:30that came from Earth's own magnetic field.
07:33They were mixed with particles from the Sun,
07:35and everything was spinning together
07:37inside this strange structure.
07:39The spacecraft recorded how the magnetic field flipped,
07:43how fast the particles were moving,
07:44and how the whole thing behaved.
07:47The twist seemed to come from a process
07:48called magnetic reconnection,
07:51where magnetic fields from the Sun and Earth
07:53snap together and release a burst of energy.
07:55These bursts can set off bright auroras,
07:58but the big ones can also knock out satellites
08:01or mess with power grids.
08:03The MMS probes will keep flying through the area
08:06hunting for more twists and bursts,
08:09trying to pin down what causes them
08:11and which ones are strong enough
08:12to mess with our technology on the ground.
08:14The problem is that tiny magnetic snap
08:18might let radiation push far deeper
08:20into our atmosphere.
08:22And now, scientists are starting to connect the dots.
08:26Strange aviation glitches.
08:29Signs of ancient megastorms buried in old trees.
08:32And now, a fresh crack in our magnetosphere.
08:36Together, they paint a worrying picture.
08:39We depend on calm space weather for everything.
08:42Planes in the sky, GPS, satellites,
08:45even the power running through our homes.
08:47The Airbus grounding might end up
08:49looking like a gentle warning.
08:51The first hint that something much bigger
08:53could be building out in space.
08:57That's it for today.
08:58So hey, if you pacified your curiosity,
09:00then give the video a like
09:01and share it with your friends.
09:03Or if you want more,
09:04just click on these videos
09:05and stay on the bright side.
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