A solar storm can tell a train the track is clear #shorts

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:00]A solar storm can tell a train the track is [music] clear. Train signals work by detecting tiny electrical currents running through the rails.

[00:00:08]>> [music] >> A train on the track completes a circuit. The signal turns red. Simple.

[00:00:13]But the sun keeps interfering.

[00:00:15]>> [music] >> A geomagnetic storm caused by a solar ejection hitting Earth's magnetic field [music] pushes enormous electrical currents through the ground itself.

[00:00:25]Those ground currents leak into railway [music] tracks. The signal system reads those as a train when there isn't one or reads nothing when there is. This isn't theoretical.

[00:00:36]>> [music] >> Researchers at Lancaster University found it's already happened. During storms in 1982 and 1989, >> [music] >> UK rail signals triggered false readings. Nobody connected the cause for years. A storm on the scale of the 1859 [music] Carrington event would be roughly 10 times stronger than anything [music] we've seen since railways existed.

[00:01:00]Engineers are only now writing protection standards. Would you trust a signal that the sun could flip?