On Sept. 1, 1859, the brunt of a solar storm collided with Earth, disabling much of the world’s telegraph system. Sparks reportedly flew from telegraph machines, and the night sky turned an apocalyptic red, causing birds to chirp at what they thought was dawn.
Today, scientists believe that in 1859, Earth collided with a massive number of electrically charged particles shot from the sun, all part of a coronal mass ejection. The episode became known as the Carrington Event, after the amateur astronomer, Richard Carrington, who observed the related sunspots that morning with his telescope.
