- The solar superstorm of 1859 was the fiercest ever recorded.
Auroras filled the sky as far south as the Caribbean, magnetic
compasses went haywire and telegraph systems failed. - Ice cores
suggest that such a blast of solar particles happens only once
every 500 years, but even the storms every 50 years could fry
satellites, jam radios and cause coast-to-coast blackouts. - The
cost of such an event justifies more systematic solar monitoring
and beefier protection for satellites and the power grid. As
night was falling across the Americas on Sunday, August 28,
1859, the phantom shapes of the auroras could already be seen
overhead. From Maine to the tip of Florida, vivid curtains of
light took the skies. Startled Cubans saw the auroras directly
overhead; ships’ logs near the equator described crimson lights
reaching halfway to the zenith. Many people thought their cities
had caught fire. Scientific instruments around the world,
patiently recording minute changes in Earth’s magnetism,
suddenly shot off scale, a