Lessons from the sun: How studying solar cycles can create a safer future on Earth

In 1859, the Carrington Event, the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, created spectacular auroral displays around the globe, illuminating the night skies so brightly that birds began singing and laborers set off for work, mistakenly believing the sun had risen. Telegraph systems around the world—essential for communication at the time—began to fail as fires sparked and telegraph poles toppled, plunging the "Victorian Internet" into chaos. The cause? A massive solar flare with the energy of 10 billion atomic bombs was spewing electrified gas and subatomic particles toward Earth.