Meltdown! A solar superstorm could send us back into the dark ages

Meltdown! A solar superstorm could send us back into the dark ages – and one is due in just THREE years
>> Sunday, April 19, 2009

The catastrophe, when it comes, will be beautiful at first. It is a balmy evening in late September 2012. Ever since the sun set, the dimming skies over London have been alive with fire. Pillars of incandescent green writhe like gigantic serpents across the skies. Sheets of orange race across the horizon during the most spectacular display of the aurora borealis seen in southern England for 153 years.

And then, 90 seconds later, the lights start to go out. Not the lights in the sky – they will dazzle until dawn – but the lights on the ground. Within an hour, large parts of Britain are without power. By midnight, every mobile network is down and the internet is dying. Television – terrestrial and satellite – blinks off the air. Radio is reduced to a burst of static.

By noon the following day, it is clear something terrible has happened and the civilised world has plunged into chaos.

A year later, Britain, most of Europe plus North America is in the grip of the deepest economic catastrophe in history.

Refreshing News: Meltdown! A solar superstorm could send us back into the dark ages – and one is due in just THREE years