Video taking off 15x its usual first day

Can radio telescopes give us more warning of solar storms?

ABC Science's documentary connects spectacular southern lights with vulnerable GPS signals, then heads into the Outback in search of better forecasts.

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ABC Science Story of November 11, 2026Trari Newsroom

Why this story? The video opened at a pace of 66,984 views a day, 15 times a normal first day on this channel (4,379).

Solar Storms: Humanity’s Biggest Threat? | FULL DOCUMENTARY ABC Original

Things we can learn from the video

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6:40Hannah Schunker explains how the Sun's plasma and magnetic activity produce flares and coronal mass ejections.
17:48Brett Carter uses a canoe analogy to show how ionospheric turbulence disrupts radio and GPS signals.
21:51The Carrington Event and the 2012 near-miss illustrate the potential consequences of a powerful Earth-directed eruption.
29:44Richard Marshall distinguishes advance notice of an approaching eruption from the shorter warning available through nearby satellites.
44:31The Murchison Widefield Array detects fluctuations in radio signals to track incoming solar material days ahead.
51:17The film explores how the Square Kilometre Array could help measure magnetic orientation and forecast storm severity.

Passengers on a flight south from Perth get green auroras outside their windows. For space scientist Dr Brett Carter, the spectacle also offers a way into a less picturesque question: what happens when activity on the Sun disrupts the technology we depend on?

ABC Science's solar-storm documentary drew roughly 67,000 views in its first day, about fifteen times the channel's usual opening for regular videos. First broadcast in 2022, it follows scientists in Australia and Malaysia from sunspot observations to remote radio telescopes.

The flight supplies the scenery, but Carter's canoe demonstration makes the problem tangible. He compares disturbances in the ionosphere, the charged region of Earth's upper atmosphere, to turbulence on a calm lake. Those disturbances can interfere with radio signals and GPS accuracy, with consequences for systems such as aircraft landing guidance.

Solar physicist Dr Hannah Schunker looks back at the Carrington Event of 1859 and a powerful eruption that missed Earth in 2012. Rather than treating the title's "Humanity's Biggest Threat?" as a settled verdict, the film explores what a severe storm could disrupt and why forecasting it is difficult.

Its most intriguing answer comes from Western Australia's Murchison Widefield Array. Dr John Morgan and Professor Steven Tingay explain how incoming solar material makes radio signals from distant sources appear to twinkle. Measuring that fluctuation lets researchers track an approaching coronal mass ejection.

Arrival is only part of the puzzle. The film explains that the eruption's magnetic orientation helps determine how destructive it could be, then explores how the Square Kilometre Array could help reveal that missing clue before impact.

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What viewers say

How do radio telescope observations help scientists forecast coronal mass ejections?
@AiweeScienceSee it on YouTube
Remarkable music. Incredible.
@gregwilson825See it on YouTube
Thankyou for bringing this much needed information out into mainstream for people to understand what is happening and how to prepare if and when these events may occur. 🙏
@SueCooper-q3pSee it on YouTube

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