Scientists have warned that a huge cosmic storm in outer space that may lead to an ''internet apocalypse'' at some point in the next decade would cause ''unimaginable'' damage to global infrastructure. The predicted astrophysical event would leave humans without access to the internet for months or potentially even years as it would cut out satellites and power lines.
The shocking discovery to this obscure future possibility has been made for the first time using tree rings as scientists reveal that forests are an ideal place to detect cosmic radiation with an archive going back millennia.
Scientists who studied the rings in an Australian woodland area to supply ''snapshots'' of Earth's history have said that the chances of the disastrous storm happening in the next ten years are quite ''alarming'', the Daily Star reports.
Dr Benjamin Pope, of the University of Queensland in Australia, said: "Based on available data, there’s roughly a 1% chance of seeing another one within the next decade. But we don’t know how to predict it or what harms it may cause.
''These odds are quite alarming, and lay the foundation for further research." Dr Pope added: "These huge bursts of cosmic radiation, known as Miyake Events, have occurred approximately once every thousand years but what causes them is unclear.
"The leading theory is they are huge solar flares. We need to know more, because if one of these happened today, it would destroy technology including satellites, internet cables, long-distance power lines and transformers.
"The effect on global infrastructure would be unimaginable." Experts fear a catastrophic storm will hit humanity by the end of this century.
The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences. On the cosmic side of things, Daily Star reported that ancient astronomers searching the stars had charted the skies thousands of years ago.
The infamous map went missing 2000 years ago, and while it has since been recovered and may show the positions of stars and planets, the map proves that Hipparchus "did map the heavens centuries before other known attempts".
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