☀️ On the morning of September 1, 1859, English astronomer Richard Carrington was sketching sunspots through dark filters. Around 11 am, he saw a sudden flash of intense white light from the area of the sunspots. The whole event lasted five minutes. But what followed about 17 hours later was even more remarkable.
☕️ The Earth’s magnetic field trembled as a massive solar storm hit our planet. This wasn’t just any storm; it was a geomagnetic storm so strong that telegraph systems across Europe and North America went haywire. Operators received shocks, and machines worked even when unplugged. Auroras, usually seen in polar regions, dazzled skies as far south as Cuba and Hawaii, turning night into day. According to NOAA, gold miners in the Rocky Mountains woke up and made coffee, bacon, and eggs at 1 AM, thinking the Sun had risen on a cloudy morning.
🛰️ This event, now known as the Carrington event, was the most powerful geomagnetic storm in recorded history. It remains a sobering reminder of the Sun’s power and the potential vulnerabilities of modern technology to similar solar storms in the future. If an event of this magnitude were to occur today, it could have devastating effects on global communications, power grids, and satellites.
💸 The potential impact of a Carrington-class event today has been estimated to result in damages ranging from $0.6-2.6 trillion in the U.S. alone.
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