Rediscovered magnetic recordings reveal just how extreme the largest recorded solar storm in history, the Carrington event in 1859, really was, highlighting the danger such storms could present to us nowadays
By Alex Wilkins
22 March 2024
Ejections of plasma from the sun can create geomagnetic storms when they smash into Earth’s atmosphere Jurik Peter/Shutterstock
The largest recorded solar storm in history, the Carrington event of 1859, may have been even rarer and more extreme than we thought, according to rediscovered magnetic data gathered at the time.
In early September 1859, a massive solar flare was seen and a coronal mass ejection – a bubble of plasma and magnetic field expelled from the sun’s corona – struck…
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