Humans have been around for a long time. We’ve seen and accomplished what might be thought of as miracles, but something in our nature doesn’t just let a miracle rest. When an amazing thing happens, we immediately set out to duplicate it. This is seen in how we judge scientific experiments (“Can the results be replicated?”) and is found on playgrounds everywhere. (“I bet you can’t do it again!”)

Some of our greatest, most difficult accomplishments have been repeated. When humans put a man on the Moon, we did it 11 times after that. Even some of the craziest oddities in nature have been witnessed more than once. Did you know the Mississippi River has flowed backward three times?

But occasionally, there are truly unique events—incredible things never seen again in recorded history. Here are ten.

Featured image credit: P. Stattmayer/European Southern Obersvatory

10 Comet West

Comet West

Photo credit: J. Linder/European Southern Observatory
Visible in March 1976, Comet West, named after astronomer Richard West, who first observed it, was a remarkable sight that reached an apparent magnitude of –3. That’s brighter than Jupiter ever appears from Earth. While impressive, its place on this list is not because of its brightness but its orbital period.

Some comets are once-in-a-lifetime events, such as the famous Halley’s Comet, which orbits the Sun once every 76 years, but Comet West is estimated to orbit the Sun only once every 250,000 years. This figure is by no means certain; loss of mass or interactions with other solar bodies could change the comet’s orbit. Of course, 249,000 years is still a lot.

Regrettably, Comet West was not well-reported by the media. Prior to that, Comet Kohoutek had been hyped up but was a disappointing display, which led to Comet West’s lack of coverage. Some of us missed its visit in 1976, and we’re somewhat unlikely to see its next.

9 The Carrington Event


The Carrington Event was a geomagnetic storm caused by a massive solar flare at 11:23 PM on September 1, 1859. The flare was observed by Richard Carrington and hit the Earth’s magnetosphere the next morning, lighting the predawn sky with auroras seen as far south as Jamaica. Newspapers could be read in the light of these auroras.

More troubling was that telegraph wires the world over sparked and caught fire. Even when disconnected from their power sources, they were able to send messages because of the electrical currents caused by the event. Until that day, no one was aware that solar flares existed.

We routinely observe solar flares now, but the Carrington event was unique because of a combination of two things: It hit us, and it was massive, the largest solar flare to hit Earth in at least 500 years. If a similar event happened today, it would cause an estimated $1–2 trillion in damage. Here’s hoping it maintains its place on our list.

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