Oct 10 2024 17 mins
In 2012 Fusa Miyake was a physics graduate student working on a project that involved traveling to a lush island in Southern Japan famous for its ancient cedar trees. She was doing a new type of carbon dating, and her findings created a buzz of excitement in archaeology and sent a frisson of fear through astronomers. But what do trees have to do with an event that could wreak havoc with satellites and power grids?