A Cataclysmic Geomagnetic Storm Missed Us by 9 Days
In 1859, the Carrington Event became the largest CME ever recorded, and we were almost hit by one again in 2012
As we go about our daily lives, working, paying bills, and trying our best to enjoy ourselves, we don’t tend to think in grand cosmic terms. Most of us aren’t constantly fretting that our solar system could be swallowed by a black hole, or that Earth might be hit by an extinction-level comet. Besides, as scary as these kinds of cataclysms are, they’re pretty unlikely.
Well, most of them are.
The Carrington Event
In September 1859, there was a geomagnetic storm so devastating that the aurora was seen in Hawaii. It caused telegraph systems around the world to fail, pylons emitted sparks, and in some cases, their operators received electric shocks. In fact, it was so powerful that several operators even reported being able to send messages even when they weren’t plugged into their batteries—just by using the current generated by the solar storm.
In August of that year, astronomers around the globe were recording the growing number of sunspots on our nearest star. Richard Carrington, an amateur astronomer in the town of Redhill, near London, England, was among…
