A huge solar storm, that was about 10 times stronger than any other one recorded in modern history, is believed to have hit the Earth nearly 2600 years ago, a recent study has found.
Scientists made the conclusion after examining samples of ice cores and tree rings taken from Greenland, thus detecting trapped radioactive atoms that indicate a gigantic proton storm struck the planet in about 660 B.C.

Similar storms hit Earth in A.D. 774-775, A.D. 993-994, 1859 and 1989.

Scientists, however, warned that another solar storm could wreak havoc at the present time, given how dependent the world has become on electricity.

"The sun can bombard Earth with explosions of highly energetic particles known as solar proton events. These proton storms can endanger people and electronics both in space and in the air," the study explains.

"Today, we have a lot of infrastructure that could be badly damaged, and we travel in air and space where we are much more exposed to high-energy radiation," senior study author Raimund Muscheler, an environmental physicist at Lund University in Sweden, told Live Science.