156 Years Ago Today: The Carrington Event

Today is the anniversary of an historic solar storm, the Carrington Event

On Sept. 2, 1859, a CME struck Earth’s magnetic field with such power that telegraph stations caught fire and people in Cuba read their morning newspapers by the red light of the aurora borealis.

If a similar storm struck our planet today, it might cause trillions of dollars of damage to society’s high-tech infrastructure.

Could the Carrington Event happen again? It almost did just a few years ago. Extreme solar storms–past, present and future–are highlighted on today’s edition of http://spaceweather.com

Shouts to the Southgate ARC.