That time America almost started World War 3 over space weather

Season 2 of For All Mankind, Apple TV+’s alt-history show about the Cold War space race, opens with a cosmic crisis: A massive solar storm knocks out satellites, threatens astronauts on the Moon, and brings the U.S. and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war.

While this dramatic 1983 space weather event is an invention of the show, the dire military consequences aren’t as far fetched as they sound. In fact, almost two decades earlier, a solar storm really did push humanity one step closer to nuclear annihilation.

‘Solar storm’ is a catch-all term for a space weather event in which the Sun flings dangerous particles and radiation our direction during a period of heightened activity. These cosmic tempests typically start with a solar flare, an eruption of electromagnetic energy that can disrupt radio communications when it washes over the Earth at the speed of light. Solar flares are often followed by a slower moving blob of magnetized plasma known as a coronal mass ejection (CME). When CMEs pass Earth, they can induce geomagnetic storms that cause further radio interference, in addition to potentially harming satellites and, in the most severe cases, inducing currents on the ground that can fry electrical grids. Finally, both solar flares and CMEs can produce waves of dangerous, fast-moving proton radiation that can further damage satellites and harm any people in orbit (or on the Moon).