90 seconds from catastrophe
Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment.
Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.
A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation's infrastructure lies in tatters.
The World Bank declares America a developing nation.
Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event - a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.
It sounds ridiculous.
Surely the sun couldn't create so profound a disaster on Earth.
Yet an extraordinary report funded by NASA and issued by the US National Academy of Sciences (NAS) in January this year claims it could do just that.
Over the last few decades, western civilizations have busily sown the seeds of their own destruction.
Our modern way of life, with its reliance on technology, has unwittingly exposed us to an extraordinary danger: plasma balls spewed from the surface of the sun could wipe out our power grids, with catastrophic consequences.
If one should hit the Earth's magnetic shield, the result could be truly devastating.
Read full at NewScientist
