The Carrington Event of 1859 is the largest recorded account of a geomagnetic storm, but it is not an isolated event. Geomagnetic storms have been recorded since the early 19th century ...

This story appears in the June 2012 issue of National Geographic magazine. On Thursday, September 1, 1859, a 33-year-old brewer and amateur astronomer named Richard Carrington climbed the stairs ...

Since ancient times, the sun has been known as a giver of light and heat, a source of life. Plants are coaxed from the Earth ...

In 1859, Richard Carrington, a wealthy brewery owner and amateur astronomer, was sketching sunspots when, to his amazement, one turned abruptly from darkness to light. This explosive “solar ...

But none of those storms come close to the scale of the 1859 monster. If a Carrington event happened today, the world would likely have to deal with the simultaneous loss of GPS, cell phone ...