Remember that spectacular aurora in June 2015?

[Deane Clark]

I ran across this article tonight about that event on the night of June 22, 2015. It says the Earth's magnetic field was "cracked" by the impact of a huge coronal mass ejection, letting through a burst of cosmic rays for about 2 hours.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 125930.htm
That's the night I was texting everybody in my contacts to go out and look.