In 1859 an amateur astronomer named Richard Carrington happened to witness the eruption of a giant fireball from the sun. The resulting collision of the solar flare with Earth’s atmosphere caused auroras as bright as daylight. The eruption of the Carrington solar flares was equivalent to the energy of ten billion atomic bombs, and the resulting geomagnetic storm damaged equipment and made it impossible to transmit telegraph signals, the only means of electrical communication at the time.

A similar event today (or tomorrow) might well result in a massive power outage. An even larger event—always a possibility—could be as devastating as the events described in this book.

Try entering the following phrases in a search engine:

Carrington event 1859

Massive solar flare

Coronal mass ejection

Geomagnetic event

Geomagnetic field excursions

Laschamp event

Building a simple crystal radio

Keep reading. Record your thoughts and reactions. And you might want to write it down on paper or print out a copy. Just in case.