Numbers flickered on the screen. In the background, people were discussing that weather services had begun to report changes in the weather in all regions of the globe. Jean-Jacques Dordain covered his face with his hands and repeated the same question to himself, “What is going on? Just one sensible thought.”
When he opened his eyes, a dazed assistant stood in front of him.
“What is it?” rubbing his forehead, Jean-Jacques Dordain asked.
“Monsieur,” said the assistant, “we have discovered something interesting,” he pointed to the laptop screen.
Monsieur Dordain picked up his glasses from the table and put them to his eyes, he gazed into the image.
“A new spot?” he suggested.
“Compared to this,” the assistant zoomed out of the image, “everything else on the Sun is a spot. It looks like the beginning of a plasma ejection or something. The temperature at that spot has almost doubled in a matter of minutes.”
“What a nonsense,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, closing his eyes. “How many degrees is it now?”
The assistant swallowed.
“Twenty million Kelvin,” his eyes darted around. “But we’re checking the data, there might be an error somewhere.”
“No,” Monsieur Dordain said with a shake of his head, “it’s not an error.”
He had already turned his gaze to the big screen and made sure that the information was up to date. The indicators on the screen were growing before his eyes. The last time Monsieur Dordain had looked at the monitor it had a figure of ‘-20%’ next to the phrase “solar activity, changes”, now it had another even more frightening figure, ‘+24%’. There was chaos in the room, everyone was talking and ringing loudly. Jean-Jacques Dordain turned on his microphone.
“Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please. As you can see, the Sun’s activity has changed dramatically.”
Someone shouted from his seat:
“South America and the USA are now seeing a northern lights: does anyone in this room have an explanation for this?”
Mr Dordain was approached by the ESA’s chief analyst. He shook hands with Jean-Jacques, sat down next to him and switched on the microphone.
“Good afternoon, my name is Claudio Sianti. I have an answer for you.”
The room froze.
“Right now, we are observing an area on the surface of the Sun with a surface temperature of about 20 million Kelvin,” he saw that there was no reaction. “That’s a lot. We are now witnessing the largest coronal mass ejection in history. So what are the consequences of that?” he thought for a moment. “Northern lights? Yes. And also disruption of electrical appliances, navigation equipment, radio signals.”