Could the world's largest solar storm happen again?

The strongest recorded geomagnetic storm in history created auroras near the equator

On Sept. 1, 1859, the Carrington Event—named after the astronomer who observed the preceding solar flare—saw a massive coronal mass ejection strike Earth, disrupting telegraph systems, sparking electrical fires, and reportedly illuminating the night sky enough to allow newspapers to be read at night.

The impacts of the solar maximum on Earth, from telecommunications to auroras

During the peak of the sun's 11-year cycle, plasma emissions stronger than the average stream of particles from the sun can compress and distort the Earth's magnetic field, allowing auroras to be seen farther from the poles. Distortions in the ionized layer of Earth's atmosphere can also alter the path of communication transmissions through the air. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

The sun emits a continuous stream of plasma known as the solar wind

Composed of charged particles—electrons and ions—the solar wind is deflected around the Earth by the planet's magnetic field. More powerful solar storms, known as coronal mass ejections, are short-lived but produce huge clouds of plasma that disrupt technology upon reaching Earth.

What would happen if a massive asteroid struck Earth?

While NASA states that no known asteroid currently threatens Earth, past impacts demonstrate that the risk is real. The agency has tested deflection technology to alter an asteroid's path, as this visualization imagines a worst-case collision scenario.

Our solar system is currently traveling through a 'dark matter hurricane'

The phenomenon refers to a stream of cosmic debris, including stars and dark matter, leftover from a small galaxy that passed too close to the Milky Way and was torn apart. There are over 30 such streams known in our galaxy, and the stream intersecting the solar system is predicted to continue to do so for millions of years.

The global impacts of the 1877 'super' El Niño and what could result from similar future events

The 1877 El Niño event lasted approximately 18 months, raised temperatures in the Niño 3.4 region of the equatorial Pacific Ocean by 2.7 degrees Celsius (4.86 degrees Fahrenheit) above average, and contributed to a global famine that killed more than 50 million people. Such events are expected to exacerbate drought-related risks to global food security, driving up food prices worldwide. (Some readers may experience a paywall.)

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

View the 10 biggest volcanic eruptions in recorded history

The Mount Tambora eruption in 1815 was the deadliest and released so much sun-blocking ash and gas that 1816 became known as “the year without summer.” The resulting global food shortages are estimated to have killed over 71,000 people.

If the Earth stopped spinning, 85% of the world's population would experience supersonic winds

The planet's equator moves about 470 meters per second—over 1,000 miles per hour—and air there would continue moving at this speed for several minutes if the ground stopped rotating. These conditions would cause tsunamis, global storms, and fling debris fast enough to destroy nearly all human-made structures.

A magnitude 25 earthquake would release enough energy to destroy the sun

Since Richter and moment magnitude scales rank earthquake energies logarithmically, theoretical magnitude values can cover an enormous range with no upper or lower mathematical limit. A particle of dust drifting onto a table would have a magnitude of about -15.

Discover what would happen in the US if the electric grid permanently went down

While the grid is designed with redundancies and to restart quickly in the event of an interruption, a long-term, widespread blackout would cut off most telecommunications, water, and sewage systems and cause supermarkets, which keep only about three days of inventory, to quickly empty. Without electricity and the transportation systems that rely on it, modern food production would also halt.

The Great Red Spot, Jupiter's largest storm, has existed for nearly 200 years

Despite decreasing in size, the anticyclone remains larger than Earth, rotating with winds up to 933 km/h. Its longevity may be because it is trapped between two opposite-flowing jet streams, which act like two conveyor belts.

How big is a supernova explosion?

Supernovas are the biggest explosions in the universe, often obliterating the area surrounding them. So what would happen if one exploded near Earth? If the sun went supernova it'd be like getting hit by a nuclear explosion every second for weeks. Of course, that's not happening anytime soon. This animated video shows how distance is the key factor, and how you shouldn't be worried.

As of 2025, the longest lightning bolt in the world spanned several states

Although the average bolt measures less than 16 kilometers (10 miles), the 2017 "megaflash" spanned 829 kilometers (515 miles) from eastern Texas to Missouri. Severe thunderstorms are common in the region, where warm, humid air from the Gulf collides with cool, dry air from the north, generating atmospheric instability.

The day the dinosaurs died

Roughly 66 million years ago, a giant meteor struck Earth off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. Some dinosaurs died in the immediate impact, which sent a 200-foot tsunami all the way up to what is now North Dakota. Many others perished in the resulting change in climate, with debris ejected into the global atmosphere. This 12-minute video provides an overview of what scientists have uncovered about the fateful day.

Average hurricane intensity, not frequency, has increased over the past century

While the total number of tropical cyclones globally each year has not significantly shifted since 1920, a greater proportion of them are major, defined as category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The increased energy present in a warmer climate may be contributing to higher intensification rates.

Project STORMFURY explored modifying hurricanes with silver iodide

Between 1962 and 1983, researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration investigated whether weakening and controlling hurricanes was possible. The investigation showed very few hurricanes met the criteria for modification, despite successfully weakening two storms.

Within an 18-hour period in 1974, 13 states were hit by 148 tornadoes

From April 3-4, a tornado outbreak killed over 300 people and caused $600M in damage ($3.8B in 2024 dollars). The event revealed deficiencies in various technologies, including crude radar imaging and slow typewriter-based communication systems, which quickly bottlenecked and became outdated as tornado watches became tornado warnings.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

The 1978 prediction of the Kessler syndrome popularized the risks of space trash

A paper published by NASA scientists Don Kessler and Burton Cour-Palais described a scenario where the density of objects in orbit becomes so high that collisions between them create a cascading effect of runaway debris, preventing future space travel. The risks were confirmed from returned telescope parts showing debris impacts.

On average, every in-service airplane is struck by lightning once a year

The average strikes per surface area per year on Earth suggest that aircraft should only be struck once every 1,000 years, based on their size, but proximity to storm clouds' high electrical fields increases strike rates. Aircraft are designed as continuous conductive shells, causing electricity to flow along their exterior and preventing internal damage.

A US project proposed a 10-gigaton nuclear bomb capable of global devastation

Planned in the early 1950s by US scientists, Project Sundial aimed to create a 10-gigaton thermonuclear bomb—hundreds of times more powerful than any weapon ever built. Had it been tested, it was expected to cause global environmental catastrophe.

The ultraviolet catastrophe is the infinite energy prediction of classical physics

When scientists first tried calculating the radiation emitted by a heated object, their assumption was that energy was equally distributed across wavelengths and produced infinite energy at low wavelengths. This contradicted observations, which showed near-zero energy intensity at those values.

What is a reply all email storm?

When 30,000 people receive an email, to which anyone can "reply all," a spontaneous chain reaction of many more messages can be sparked, producing what's known as an "email storm." This has happened at a large scale in several high-profile cases, most notably in Thomson Reuter's email database. Check out Know Your Meme's breakdown of this phenomenon and description of several major examples.

If, not when: An earthquake is destined to destroy the Pacific Northwest.

When the Cascadia fault line ruptures, it could be North America’s worst natural disaster in recorded history. Read a deep dive into the history of the region and the potential impact of the eventual seismic boom.

Planeterrellas create artificial auroras that mimic the atmospheric displays of light by setting up an electric field between two metal balls in a jar filled with a small amount of air.

Visualize the path of every solar eclipse from 1900 to 2099 and see what each looks like when observed from different locations on Earth.

Nor'easters can produce thundersnow—lightning in blizzard conditions

Although thunderstorms typically require warm air to rise in updrafts and collide with heavier soft hail, which creates charge separation and eventual electrical discharge, these cyclones can replicate these conditions by churning the atmosphere through strong winds. Rarely, especially warm lakes can similarly help generate thunderstorms during the winter.

View the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history.

Neutron stars, the remains of some massive stars after they explode in a supernova, are the densest directly observable objects in the universe.

Volcanic activity may have triggered the Black Death by spewing gases that led to crop failures in Europe, thus forcing the import of grain ships with plague-infested fleas.

Scientists can determine Earth's past climate conditions by analyzing air trapped in microscopic bubbles within ice cores—columns of compressed snow layers that build up over hundreds of thousands of years.

A 2019 Facebook event called on attendees to "Storm Area 51, They Can't Stop All of Us," resulting in countless memes, the creation of a music festival, and eventually the arrests of those who did try to approach the area.

The deadliest aspect of volcanic eruptions is often not lava, but pyroclastic flows—avalanches of ash, gas, and rock that can move more than half the speed of sound.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Hurricanes, which rely on air consistently spinning in the same direction, cannot cross the equator because air curves in opposite directions north and south of it.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is the largest ground war in Europe since World War II in casualties, forces mobilized, and displacement of civilians.

Chaos theory—informally known as the butterfly effect—is the reason why weather forecasts are presented with probabilities rather than certainties.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

This real-time tracking of the hantavirus cruise ship outbreak in May 2026 offers a unique glimpse into the global reach of the outbreak and whether the virus sickened passengers and their communities around the world.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

Fireworks-related ER visits are on the rise—in 2024, they increased by 52% as compared to the prior year.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

Poison ivy will likely become both larger and more resilient due to climate change.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

Coral polyps reproduce via broadcast spawning, where entire reefs simultaneously release reproductive cells for about one hour, once a year.

Before writing 'Walden,' transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau nearly burned down his hometown with a campfire that grew out of control.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.