160 years ago today, the largest solar storm on record occurred. Referred to as either “The Solar Storm of 1859” or “The Carrington Event” (named after the British astronomer who documented it and sketched the sunspots that caused it), the solar coronal mass ejection (CME) hit the earth’s magnetic field and caused havoc with the telegraph systems. The Aurora Borealis could be seen as far south at the Caribbean.
This solar storm took out the telegraph systems, and is recorded as even giving one telegraph operator an electric shock. Operators could continue to send telegraphs even though they disconnected their systems from the power supplies.
In June 2013, a joint venture from researchers at Lloyd’s of London and Atmospheric and Environmental Research (AER) in the United States used data from the Carrington Event to estimate the current cost of a similar event to the U.S. alone at $0.6–2.6 trillion.
Imagine what this kind of storm would do to our current technology?
Good thing we’re in a solar minimum.