Carrington Event
If you have been following any recent astronomy news, you will find a lot of talk about solar flares and geomagnetic storms. I wrote an article a while back about the geomagnetic storm that destroyed a bunch of brand new satellites that were just launched to support Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service. According to current research this is just the beginning of the 2022-2023 solar season, and we have experienced several larger than normal geomagnetic storms. So this week I thought I would write about an event that occurred over 160 years ago.
It was the evening of September 1, 1859, when reports started coming in from around the world. Two British astronomers, Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson, made the first recorded scientific records of the solar flare. Around 17 hours later, sparks and even fires began to break out in telegraph stations. At that time it was believed that the two events were related, but since it was the first time a solar flare had been observed in conjunction with a geomagnetic storm, it was still just a guess.
After many more years of studies we now know that solar flares eject coronal mass from the sun. Most of the time the flares are harmless as they occur in directions that eject the mass away from earth, but on rare occasions these solar flares are aimed directly at the earth. This was the case in 1859, as the largest geomagnetic storm ever recorded by ground-based instruments coincided with the observation of the solar flare. This particular flare reached earth in record time, traveling 93 million miles in merely 17.6 hours. Normally these magnetic storms take several days to arrive after the observation of a flare.
So why did this particular storm reach earth so rapidly compared to normal events? Recent studies have indicated that prior coronal mass ejections traveling in the same direction improve the conductivity of space, making it easier for the next storm to travel the path. There were records of a large aurora event August 29, 1859, that was likely from an earlier, unobserved solar flare, which cleared the path.
Now I’m sure you are wondering why it was called the Carrington Event and not the Carrington-Hodgson event. It has to do with the fact that Carrington studied the records of another scientist, Scottish physicist Balfour Stewart. Stewart was responsible for the observation of the geomagnetic storm that hit on September 2, 1859. Carrington expected that the events were connected, so he acquired the assistance of Elias Loomis, an American mathematician, to help prove the relationship. As a result Carrington was given credit for the discovery of the relationship between geomagnetic storms and solar flares. This first observation of the strongest geomagnetic storm in history gained the name of the scientist responsible for discovering the relationship. This made it possible to predict geomagnetic storms based on solar observation.
Geomagnetic storms usually only cause strong auroras, sometimes referred to as the northern lights, to drop farther south. The auroras are formed as the earth’s magnetic field fluctuates in response to the magnetic wave from the solar flare. It was said that the aurora over the Rocky Mountains that night were so bright that the glow woke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast, thinking that the sun was rising. People in the northeastern United States could read a newspaper by the aurora’s light, and the aurora was visible as far south as Colombia, near the equator.
On Saturday, September 3, 1859, the Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser reported:
“Those who happened to be out late on Thursday night had an opportunity of witnessing another magnificent display of the auroral lights. The phenomenon was very similar to the display on Sunday night, though at times the light was, if possible, more brilliant, and the prismatic hues more varied and gorgeous. The light appeared to cover the whole firmament, apparently like a luminous cloud, through which the stars of the larger magnitude indistinctly shone. The light was greater than that of the moon at its full, but had an indescribable softness and delicacy that seemed to envelop everything upon which it rested. Between 12 and 1 o’clock, when the display was at its full brilliancy, the quiet streets of the city resting under this strange light, presented a beautiful as well as singular appearance.”
Telegraph systems all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases delivering surprising shocks to telegraph operators and causing sparks around the telegraph pylons. Some brave telegraph operators noticed the telegraph system was able to work when disconnected from the batteries, powered purely off the magnetic fields of the aurora. They communicated with no batteries for nearly two hours.
I’m curious what another Carrington event would do to our modern electronics. Would they survive such high electromagnetic currents, or would such an event kick us back to the dark ages?
Until next week, stay safe and learn something new.
Scott Hamilton is an Expert in Emerging Technologies at ATOS and can be reached with questions and comments via email to sh*******@te**********.org or through his website at https://www.techshepherd.org.
