In February 1204, the Japanese court poet Fujiwara no Teika recorded in his diary that a terrifying "red vapor" and glowing red light filled the night sky over Kyoto for three consecutive nights.
Eight centuries later, scientists analyzed carbon-14 spikes in ancient tree rings and confirmed he had witnessed a massive, historic solar storm.
The red skies were a severe, low-latitude aurora borealis triggered by powerful coronal mass ejections. A solar storm of that magnitude today would have fried every satellite, GPS system, and global power grid on Earth.
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