On September 1, 1859, the Carrington Event lit up the skies and wreaked havoc on the early telegraph system. But what if such a massive solar storm struck today?

The Carrington Event - named after its discoverer, British astronomer Richard Carrington - spanned August to September 1859. A barrage of charged particles from the sun caused a flurry of activity ...

The Carrington sunspot is renowned for the intense solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) it unleashed in August and September 1859, leading to severe geomagnetic storms. NOAA forecasts ...