178-Year-Old Space Weather Mystery Solved: Exeter Train Delay Was in 1848, Not 1841

An international team has corrected a nearly two-century-old error, showing that a 16-minute train delay in Exeter caused by a geomagnetic storm occurred on October 18, 1848, not 1841 as a Nature report from the 1870s claimed. The Exeter-to-Starcross line only opened in 1846, exposing the typo. The earliest credible case of space weather disrupting technology is now a March 1847 telegraph disruption on Britain's Midland Railway.

• Exeter train delay re-dated to October 18, 1848, not 1841
• Exeter-to-Starcross line opened in 1846, proving a typo in an 1871 Nature paper
• Earliest credible case is a March 1847 Midland Railway telegraph disruption
• Event predates the 1859 Carrington Event by more than a decade