![]() But the 774 event was so powerful that at first scientists were skeptical it could be from a flare. What could have created the space storm in 774 AD? The obvious candidate for such a thing is a very powerful solar flare, an explosion on the Sun created when intense magnetic field lines tangle up and short circuit, releasing huge blasts of energy and particles. We call these isotopes cosmogenic, made from space. The only way to get particles at energies like this is from space, where powerful magnetic fields in exploding stars, for example, can accelerate the particles to such high speeds. They slam into the nuclei of atoms and change them, creating these isotopes. The common factor in all these elements is that they are created when extremely high-energy subatomic particles hit Earth's air and ground. Some years later, looking at air samples from ice cores, scientists saw that there were elevated levels of beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 as well. Scientists found that the level of carbon-14, an isotope of carbon, was much higher in rings from that year than usual. ![]() It was first discovered by an analysis of tree rings, of all things. But were this sort of event to happen today, the results would be bad. Our pre-electronic societies went entirely unaffected by it. A mix of high-energy light and hugely accelerated subatomic particles, when this wave impacted Earth it changed our atmospheric chemistry enough to be measured centuries later. Nothing like it had been felt on this planet for 10,000 years. In the year 774 AD, an enormously powerful blast of matter and energy from space slammed into Earth.
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