History

The 1872 Solar Superstorm That Lit Up the Tropics

One night in eighteen seventy-two, people in the tropics looked up and saw the night sky on fire. The aurora, the northern lights, are supposed to belong to the far north, to the lands of ice and snow. But on this night, the glowing curtains of red and green hung directly overhead in India, and over the rooftops of Shanghai.

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