Carrington Event

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hello, and Welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,
and I'm Holly Frye. A few weeks ago, I was
thinking about our Octoberfest trip that is coming up later
this year, and I suddenly wondered whether we might have
a chance of seeing.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
The Aurora while we're there, partly.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Because one of the places will be staying seems like
it will have maybe not as much light pollution as
where I live, and also partly because I have a
really hard time visualizing how far north things are on
other continents unless I'm actually looking at a globe. The
answer is that the aurora chances are roughly comparable to

(00:53):
being at home in Massachusetts, which means unlikely but not impossible.
The only time I have seen the aurora I was
in my own yard at home, so that's in spite
of having tried to see them in Iceland while we
were there that didn't work out. During my quest to
get an answer to that question, though, I stumbled across

(01:14):
a reference to the Carrington event, and then a couple
of weeks later the Carrington event came up again in
a video game that I was playing, and I thought,
should that be an episode? The Carrington Event was a
massive geomagnetic storm that happened in eighteen fifty nine, and
in some ways it strikes me as a story of serendipity.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Most people who experienced the Carrington Event saw an aurora,
including lots of people who lived in places where auroras
do not normally appear. Although the words Aurora borealis and
Aurora australis were not coined until the early eighteenth century,
there are written descriptions of phenomena that certainly sound like Aurora's.
Going back to the ancient world, the oldest might be

(02:01):
an account of a five colored light in the sky,
which was recorded in China about three thousand years ago.
Assyrian astrological records dating back to the seventh century BCE
describe a red glow at night. Aristotle's Meteorologica, which was
written around three hundred and thirty BCE, describes the nighttime
appearance of chasms and trenches in blood red, which sometimes

(02:26):
look like flames or moving torches.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
All of those sound like they could definitely be describing
ben aurora or something else, but possibly today we know
that Auroras are caused by interactions between charged particles from
the Sun and atoms in the.

Speaker 3 (02:45):
Earth's upper atmosphere.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Auroras are most common near the poles because the Earth's
magnetic field deflects those charged particles, and that field is
weakest around the poles. But during this event, people saw
Aurora's much closer to the equator than it usually appears,
including people who were living in the tropics. Astronomers and

(03:08):
other people who were observing the Sun also noticed sun
spots leading up to this event. Like descriptions of aurora's,
descriptions of sunspots go back to the ancient world. People
in China and Korea are known to have observed sunspots
as long ago as eight hundred BCE, but the oldest
known depiction of spots on the face of the Sun

(03:30):
meaning a sketch not just a written description, is in
the Chronicle of John of Worcester, which is an English
text dating back to eleven twenty eight. There is also
a Chinese account of a black spot on the Sun
from a few months later. It may be describing the
same spot, although it doesn't have an illustration to accompany it.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
The first people known to observe and record sunspots through
a telescope were past podcast subject Thomas Harriet and Galileo
Galilee in the early seventeenth century. I just went to
Galileo's tomb.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (04:08):
By the nineteenth century, people were making systematic, methodical observations
of sunspot activity. One was Samuel Heinrich Schwaba, who was
a pharmacist from Germany who started recording daily sunspot observations
in eighteen twenty six. In eighteen twenty nine he sold
his pharmacy so he could work on astronomy full time,

(04:30):
and by eighteen forty four he had concluded that sun
spots occur in ten year cycles. That number was later
adjusted to eleven years, but it's sometimes still referred to
as the Shaba cycle.

Speaker 3 (04:44):
One of the people who.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Was inspired by Shwaba's work was Richard C. Carrington, who
the Carrington event is named for. In addition to observing
the aurora and sunspots, nineteenth century astronomers were observing the
Earth's magnetic field. The ability to do this started with
the discovery of the magnetic compass, in its simplest version,

(05:06):
a magnetized needle that orients itself in response to magnetic fields.
The first magnetic compasses date back to about two thousand
years ago in China, and they were used for divination.
It wasn't until around the eleventh century that people started
using them for navigation, with magnetized devices that always oriented
themselves along a magnetic north south line. By the seventeenth century,

(05:31):
people were theorizing that the reason compasses could do this
was because the Earth had a magnetic field that magnetized
needles were responding to, and by the eighteenth century people
had noticed that this field seemed to fluctuate. Sometimes the
compass needle would shift a tiny bit from where it
normally pointed, and then it would stay that way for

(05:52):
a while before shifting back. Or on ships traveling at sea,
the compass needle didn't always seem to point in a
exactly the same direction, but people did not yet know
why this was. In the early nineteenth century, multiple people,
including William Scoresby and Carl Friedrich Gauss, developed magnetometers to

(06:12):
measure magnetic fields, and astronomers started using these instruments to
record data about the Earth's magnetic field. In eighteen thirty six,
Baron Alexander van Humboldt wrote a letter to the President
of the Royal Society that called for the creation of
a network of magnetic observatories all over the world. Humboldt

(06:33):
was a foreign member of the Society, and he had
already worked to get such observatories established in Russia, China,
and multiple nations across continental Europe. In response to Humboldt's
recommendation and the advocacy of people like astronomer John Herschel
and natural philosopher William Hewell, Britain set up observatories in
its territory, including in Toronto, Canada, Hobart, Australia, and on

(06:57):
the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. A lot
of these observatories were also on their island territories, including
Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, two different islands
in New Zealand, and the Falkland Islands off the coast
of South America, as well as the Kerglan Islands in
the Southern Indian Ocean below the Antarctic Circle.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Britain's efforts in establishing these observatories came to be known
as the Magnetic Scheme, or sometimes the Magnetic Crusade, and
this crusade combined Victorian erascientific curiosity with the practical needs
of the British Navy. Magnetic compass readings were imprecise, compasses
point to magnetic north, not true north, and magnetic north

(07:42):
changes over time. There are also variations in the Earth's
magnetic field that affect these compass readings. The increased use
of iron in shipbuilding exacerbated these issues, and the British
Navy wanted to get more information about the Earth's magnetic
field to try to assault these problems. By eighteen fifty two,

(08:03):
thanks to ongoing observations of sunspot activity and readings from
all of these magnetometer stations, astronomers had also started to
make connections between sunspot activity and activity in the Earth's
magnetic field, with disruptions in the field seeming to follow
sunspot activity. In addition to all of this, in the

(08:24):
mid nineteenth century, there were a lot of people who
were interested in astronomy and had set up their own observatories.
One was Richard C. Carrington, whose private observatory was in Redhill, Surrey,
south of London. Carrington was elected to the Royal Society
in eighteen fifty and the Royal Astronomical Society in eighteen
fifty one. Another was Richard Hodgson, whose observatory was at

(08:47):
his home, Claybury Hall, near Woodford, Essex, northeast of London.
Hodgson had become a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society
in eighteen forty eight. And one more nineteenth century redevelopment
that was connected to all of this was the telegraph.
The first practical telegraphs were developed in the eighteen thirties.

(09:07):
That is also when Samuel Morse developed his system of
dots and dashes that is known as Morse code. By
the eighteen forties, cities were being connected with telegraph wires.
In eighteen fifty nine, there wasn't yet a transcontinental telegraph
line in North America, and there wasn't a transatlantic cable.
One had been laid in eighteen fifty eight that had

(09:30):
quickly stopped working, and it wasn't replaced until eighteen sixty six.
We did an episode on this in twenty sixteen. But
especially at North America and Europe, a lot of cities
and towns were connected to one another by telegraph. This
solar storm had an effect on telegraph lines and machinery,
and we're going to get to all of that in

(09:50):
a bit, but it also let people communicate about what
they were seeing, experiencing, and measuring much faster than before
the telegraph was developed. It is very likely that the
Carrington event was not the largest geomagnetic storm ever to
hit the Earth. For example, in seventeen seventy people in China, Korea,

(10:11):
and Japan reported a bright red aurora which lasted for
more than a week and was concurrent with sun spots
that were about twice the size of the ones that
were observed around the Carrington event. Also in twenty twelve,
Japanese physicist Fusumiyaki, who was a PhD student at the time,
discovered large spikes in carbon fourteen in tree rings, in

(10:34):
this case rings dating back to the year seven seventy four.
Other research has found examples of other huge carbon fourteen
spikes in tree rings from other years, and we really
don't know much about what caused these spikes, although they
are believed to have been caused by solar energetic particle
events that were probably much bigger than the Carrington event.

(10:57):
We also don't really know what people on Earth may
have been experienced while these Miaki events were happening. There
are some very brief mentions of phenomenon that may have
been auroras in some of the same years, but they
aren't a whole lot to go on, and there wasn't
a way to measure whatever it was that was happening.
And that's what I find to be so serendipitous about

(11:19):
the Carrington event, which is not something I would normally
say about something that had so much to do with
Britain's colonial empire project. Over just a couple of decades,
magnetic observatories had been set up all over the world,
including equipment on ships at sea. People had started watching
the sun and recording what they saw every day for

(11:39):
long enough to notice recurring patterns. People had figured out
how to use electricity to quickly send messages across long distances.
So when a geomagnetic storm started in August of eighteen
fifty nine, things were already in place and recently in
place for people to not only see its effects, but
also measure that those effects and record them and to

(12:02):
very quickly realize that it was happening in other places too.
And we're going to talk more about all of this
after we pause for a sponsor break.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
The Carrington event is sometimes described as two solar events
that happened very close together, one on August twenty eighth
and twenty ninth, eighteen fifty nine, and the other on
September first and second. It's also described as one event
that stretched over that whole window, but with reduced activity
around August thirtieth and thirty first. People had also noticed

(12:42):
changes in the sun in the days before any effects
were noticed on Earth, with a particularly large group of
sunspots noted on August twenty sixth.

Speaker 1 (12:52):
During the first phase of this geomagnetic storm, skies were
clear over much of the northern hemisphere. Eighth was the
new moon, so the skies were also particularly dark. Basically,
these were great conditions for seeing an aurora.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
As we said at the top of the show, most
people who experienced the Carrington event or knew that they
were experiencing something during the event did so by seeing
an aurora, and the descriptions of what people saw sound incredible.
The Boston Transcript ran this description on September fifth.

Speaker 3 (13:25):
Quote.

Speaker 2 (13:26):
On Sunday evening in Vermont, the twenty eighth, at seven
and a half o'clock, we were notified of a large
fire behind the mountain to the north, and we went
out to see it, and presently the red clouds began
to disappear, and spires of green shot up from the
same place. It was the most magnificent display ever witnessed

(13:46):
in this section. The sky for about an hour more
kept changing from green to red till ten and a
half o'clock, when all the brilliancy was gone except a
little green at the north.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
Here's how it was described in the Washington Daily National
Intelligencer of Washington, d c. On August thirty first quote.
The light appeared in streams, sometimes of a pure milky whiteness,
and sometimes of a light crimson. The white and rose
red waves of light as they swept to and from
the corona were beautiful beyond description. And a friend nearby us,

(14:21):
while looking to the zenith with the whole heavens and
earth lighted up at a greater brilliancy than is afforded
by the full moon, said that it was like resting
beneath the wings of the Almighty. The crown above indeed
seemed like a throne of silver, purple and crimson, hung
and spread out with curtains or wings of dazzling beauty.

(14:42):
The tremulous motion of moving light, which the inhabitants of
the Shetland Islands called the merry Dancers, was less apparent
than usual, but in place of it came those full, bright,
changing but more steady streams of light, which gave an
intense brilliancy to the whole heaven.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
Because of time zones and the International date line, it
was August twenty ninth when the unusual aurora started in Australia.
The Hobart Town Mercury reported quote, it was beyond all conception,
the most magnificent aurora ever seen in the colony. Some
of the descriptions of the aurora as seen in South
Australia describe a meteor streaking across the sky just before

(15:25):
the aurora started. I'm not totally sure whether this was
actually a meteor that was visible from South Australia, or
if that's more what people thought they were seeing before
the rest of the color really started.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
People around the world were also talking about how bright
it was. Professor Daniel Kirkwood of Bloomington, Indiana said, quote,
it was the lightest moonless night our citizens have ever known.
Other descriptions call the sky brighter than during the full moon,
or bright enough to read by, As the Times of
London reported, quote, during the first display, the whole of

(16:02):
the northern hemisphere was as light as though the sun
had set an hour before, and luminous waves rolled up
in quick succession as far as the zenith, some a
brilliancy sufficient to cast a perceptible shadow on the ground.
Accounts of the aurora's return on September one are similarly dramatic.

(16:22):
The Providence, Rhode Island Daily Post published this description on
September third, quote, the auroral light sometimes is composed of threads,
like the silken warp of a web. These sometimes become
broken and fall to the earth. The September fifth edition
of the San Francisco Harold red quote, the appearance now

(16:43):
is positively awful. The red glare is over houses, streets,
and fields, and the most dreadful of conflagrations could not
cast a deeper hue abroad, so that makes it sound terrifying.
But the words awful and dreadful were both used pretty
commonly this time to mean inspiring awe. Elsewhere. On the

(17:04):
same day, the Herald also said, quote, the whole sky
appeared to undulate something like a field of grain in
a high wind. The waters of the bay reflected the
brilliant hues of the aurora. Nothing could exceed the grandeur
and beauty of the site. The effect was almost bewildering,
and was witnessed with mingled feelings of awe and delight

(17:24):
by thousands on September first and second. The aurora was
also apparently bright enough to confuse birds and people sleeping outdoors.
The New Orleans Daily piciun carried an account of somebody
who shot three larks at one am, and the larks
were apparently out flying because they thought it was morning,

(17:45):
and the Rocky Mountain News printed this account on September seventeenth, quote,
we were high up on the Rocky Mountains, sleeping in
the open air.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
A little after midnight.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
We were awakened by the auroral light, so bright that
one could easy read common print. Some of the party
insisted that it was daylight and began the preparation of breakfast.
The light continued until morning, varying in intensity in different
parts of the heavens, and slowly changing position. We can

(18:16):
best describe it as the sky being overcast with very
light cirrus clouds wafted before a gentle breeze and lighted
up by an immense conflagration. It had rained for fifty
hours before, only ceasing about twelve hours before the auroral light.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
In terms of where.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
People saw this aurora on August twenty eighth and twenty ninth,
in the northern hemisphere, it was reported all across North
America and Central America, from ships and islands in the
Atlantic Ocean, and through western Europe as far south as
southern Spain. The southernmost reported sightings were in Hawaii, Cuba,

(18:54):
and Panama, and on a ship at sea that was
at twenty five degrees latitude north. That is the same
latitude is Key Largo, Florida. Then in the southern hemisphere
it was reported across southeastern Australia and Tasmania. The geomagnetic
storm was stronger on September first and second, with more
reports in the same regions where it had been on

(19:15):
the twenty ninth and thirtieth, along with new reports in Japan, China,
Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Chile.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
These two waves of geomagnetic activity wreaked havoc on all
those newly established telegraph systems. There were about two hundred
thousand kilometers or one hundred and twenty five thousand miles
of telegraph lines in the world at this point, and
the storm had an impact on the vast majority of
those lines, in some cases rendering them unusable for about

(19:46):
eight hours. Accounts of what happened at the telegraph stations
were as dramatic as the accounts of the Aurora Telegraph manager. E. W.
Cuggan of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania said that quote, streams of fire
came from the station's circuits. On August twenty eighth, telegraph
wires in France were reported as sparking.

Speaker 1 (20:09):
Frederick W. Royce of Washington, d C. Described having great
difficulty because of the changing currents that seemed to be
running along the lines. When it seemed like there was
a storm on the line to Richmond, he switched to
another wire, but then that wire developed the same problem.
It was also erratic. Things would be fine for five

(20:29):
or ten minutes, but then the charge would become so
weak that Royce couldn't feel it, or so strong that
he couldn't lift the device's electromagnet. And then, as quoted
in the New York Times quote. During the display, I
was calling Richmond and had one hand on the iron plate,
happening to lean towards the sounder, which is against the wall.

(20:49):
My forehead grazed a ground wire which runs down the
wall near the sounder. Immediately I received a very severe
electric shock, which stunned me for an instant. An old
man who was sitting facing me but a few feet distant,
said that he saw a spark of fire jump from
my forehead to the sounder. The Morse Line experienced the

(21:12):
same difficulty in working. In Sydney, Australia, the telegraphs were
quote seized with an unaccountable fit of restiveness. They did
not altogether refuse to work, but acted irregularly, the adjustment
of the instruments altering so frequently that it was almost
impossible to get any continuous message through. Everywhere the instruments

(21:35):
were jammed. This started during the daytime, and telegraph operators
did not know what in the world could be causing
all of these problems until night fell and the aurora
was visible in the sky. Multiple telegraph workers also reported
being able to send messages without the batteries attached to
the lines. Samuel McGowan, the General Superintendent of Electric Telegraphs,

(21:59):
submitted a report to Parliament that described this happening in Australia.

Speaker 3 (22:03):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
The effect upon the wires was in many cases singular.
At times, prevailing atmospheric currents would entirely dissipate the artificial
current and assume complete possession of the lines, baffling all
attempts at rendering the communication available again. The atmospheric currents
would suddenly entirely disappear. The lines would work perfectly when

(22:25):
in a moment the electromagnets would be quite deprived of
their ordinary power, The conducting medium would be polarized in
several opposite directions within as many seconds, and the whole
natural condition of the instruments would be instantly reversed and
as suddenly set right. On one occasion, during this interesting
disturbance of the natural elements, I communicated with and received

(22:48):
an acknowledgment from a station distant thirty two miles through
atmospheric currents alone, there being at the time no battery
on the line. I may add that I witness similar
effects about twelve years back on a line of electric
telegraph in Upper Canada, during the presence of a magnificent
Aurora borealis in midwinter.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
The same thing happened in Washington, d C. And in Boston.
An account from Boston was published in the American Journal
of Science after being reported in The Boston Traveler, and
it relayed the experience of operators in Boston and in Portland, Maine.
The Boston operator had removed the batteries from the line

(23:30):
as was working without them. He sent a message to
Portland and said they should remove that battery from the
line as well. The operator in Portland did, and then
they relayed messages without any batteries more easily than they
had done with the batteries on The Boston operator described
them as quote working with the auroral current, and said

(23:52):
the aurora seemed to alternately neutralize and augment their batteries,
making the current sometimes two strong and sometimes too weak.
So if you're wondering, like, hey, what does all of
this have to do with that Carrington guy that you
talked about earlier, listen, be patient. We're going to get
to it.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
We will get to it right after we hear from
these sponsors that keep the show going.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
The reason this geomagnetic event is called the Carrington event
is because on September first, eighteen fifty nine, English astronomer
Richard C. Carrington was working in his private observatory in Redhill, Surrey,
and he witnessed something unusual. He published an account of
what he saw in the Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society in November of eighteen fifty nine, and it

(24:42):
read quote, while engaged in the forenoon of Thursday, September first,
in taking my customary observation of the forums and positions
of the solar spots, an appearance was witnessed which I
believe to be exceedingly rare. The image of the Sun's
disc was, as usual with me, projected onto a plate
of glass coated with distemper of a pale straw color,

(25:07):
and at a distance and under a power, which presented
a picture of about eleven inches diameter. I had secured
diagrams of all the groups and detached spots, and was
engaged at the time in counting from a chronometer and
recording the contacts of the spots with the cross wires
used in the observation. When within the area of the

(25:29):
Great North Group, the size of which had previously excited
general remark, two patches of intensely bright and white light
broke out. This bright white light is probably the earliest
known direct observation of a solar flare happening in conjunction
with a coronal mass ejection. In his publication, Carrington included

(25:53):
an illustration of the sun spots, and he marked the
points where he saw the bright light as A and B.
At first he thought a hole had formed in the
screen that was part of his instrument, because it was
as bright as direct, unfiltered light would have been, So
he adjusted his instruments. He made note of what time
it was, and he called for somebody else to come

(26:14):
and look with him.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
But in the minute or so that it took him to.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Do all that, the light was quote already much changed
and enfeebled. In his illustration, he also marked where he
saw the last traces of this phenomenon as points C
and D.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Carrington exhibited a diagram of the sun and what he
had seen on it at the November meeting of the
Royal Astronomical Society, and his account in the Society's Monthly
Notices is followed by a parenthetical note about how roughly
seventeen hours after Carrington made this observation. Quote, there commenced
a great magnetic storm, the effects of which included the

(26:54):
auroras and disruptions to the telegraph system. The person who
wrote this parenthetical note charmingly relates what Carrington had to
say about the proximity of the light he saw and
this geomagnetic storm.

Speaker 3 (27:07):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
While the contemporary occurrence may deserve noting, he would not
have it supposed that he even leans toward hastily connecting them.
One swallow does not make a summer.

Speaker 2 (27:19):
I saw a lot of puns about swallows as more
data was gathered about these phenomena. A better name for
this event might be the Carrington Hodgson event, because Richard
Hodgson made the same observation at the same time in
his own observatory in Essex, and also published his account
of it in the November eighteen fifty nine Monthly Notices

(27:42):
if the Royal Astronomical Society. His account was a little
bit shorter. Hodgson wrote quote, while observing a group of
sunspots on the first September, I was suddenly surprised at
the appearance of a very bright star of light, much
brighter than the Sun's surface. Most dazzling to the protected eye,
illuminating the upper edges of the adjacent.

Speaker 3 (28:03):
Spots and streaks.

Speaker 2 (28:04):
Not unlike in effect the edging of the clouds at sunset,
the rays extended in all directions, and the center might
be compared to the dazzling brilliancy of the bright star
Alpha Lira.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
When seen through a.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Large telescope with low power. It lasted for some five
minutes and disappeared instantaneously at about eleven twenty five am.
Hodgson also made a sketch of what he had seen,
although that sketch does not seem to have survived until today.

Speaker 1 (28:33):
Carrington heard about Hodgson's observations, and he intentionally did not
discuss it with him. In his words, quote, I have
carefully avoided exchanging any information with that gentleman, that any
value which the accounts may possess may be increased by
their entire independence. Both men also knew that the magnetic
instruments at q Observatory had showed something happening at the

(28:57):
time that they observed the bright light. Carrington included that
information in his exhibition at the Society meeting, and Hodgson
ended his account with quote the magnetic instruments that Q
were simultaneously disturbed to a great extent.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
So the magnetometer traces from the Q Observatory on September first,
eighteen fifty nine show a sudden, sharp spike in both
horizontal force and declination. And there's a note written underneath
that reads, quote, the above movement was nearly coincidental in
time with Carrington's observation of a bright eruption on the

(29:35):
sun disc over a sunspot. Today this kind of reading
is called a solar flare effect or SFE, but it
has also been described as a magnetic crochet I don't
know why or who named it that, and I spent
a lot of time trying to figure it out. On
this particular one, one of the spikes does kind of
look like a crochet hook, but there are lots of

(29:58):
other ones that don't look that way that are showing
similar phenomena.

Speaker 1 (30:04):
Beyond the readings at Q Observatory, magnetic observatories all over
the world recorded intense disturbances over the course of this event.
The readings were off the scale in Brussels, Rome, Toronto,
and multiple cities in Russia. Words like violent and very
disturbed were used. To describe the readings in Melbourne, Sydney, Paris,

(30:25):
and Oslo. There were also disturbances in a magnetometer readout
from India. During this event, astronomers and other researchers got
so much information about the aurora and the descriptions to
the telegraph system and the readings from all of those
geomagnetic observatories. This was in part thanks to Elias Loomis,

(30:48):
professor of natural philosophy and astronomy at Yale, who did
a lot of work collecting reports from all over the world.
He edited and published the results of this work as
a series of nine articles in the American Journal of Science.
All these observations and all this data helped astronomers, physicists,

(31:10):
and other researchers conclude something that had already been suspected
for a while. In the words of an article in
Scientific American in October of eighteen fifty nine, quote, a
connection between the northern lights and forces of electricity and
magnetism is now fully established. This also led to a
growing understanding that the Sun and the Aurora were connected.

(31:33):
Before this point, the aurora was speculated to be connected
to everything from volcanic ash in the atmosphere to reflections
of light from polar ice to nebulous material falling from space.
It also became a precursor to the field of space
weather prediction, and this data from the Carrington event has
continued to be used in more recent years to further

(31:56):
the understanding of solar phenomena and specifically what happened in
eighteen fifty nine. In two thousand and six, scientists from
the NASA Goddard Space Center published a paper called Duration
and Extent of the Great Auroral Storm of eighteen fifty nine.
This paper described the event as quote arguably the greatest
and most famous space weather event in the last two

(32:19):
hundred years. For the first time, observation showed that the
Sun and Aurora were connected and that auroras generated strong
ionospirit currents.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
These researchers poured over reports from eighteen fifty nine. They
cross referenced observations of the Aurora with incidents at the
telegraph stations and the magnetometer readings try to get a
really precise look at exactly what had happened. This paper
also makes it clear just how much was written about
the event at the time. Quote, there are literally several

(32:54):
hundred reports that the authors have uncovered that could not
be used since they typically do not a start and
stop time of the observed aura.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Of course, more precise instruments for measuring and recording these
kinds of phenomena have been developed since eighteen fifty nine.
The observation of solar flares became a lot easier with
the development of the spectro helioscope by George ellery Hale
in the nineteen twenties. By the nineteen forties, astronomers had
gathered enough data and observations to definitively connect large solar

(33:27):
flares with geomagnetic storms. Apart from just being interesting, this
kind of research and projects to study and model the
eighteen fifty nine event may help predict what would happen
if another similar event struck the Earth Today. The vast
majority of large geomagnetic storms happened before there was anything
happening on Earth that could be adversely affected by them,

(33:50):
beyond maybe people's fear or psychological responses to the lights
in the sky. Yeah, there were a few reports from
eighteen fifty nine of people seeming kind of drunk or
behaving erratically, but overwhelmingly the reports that had more of
a sense of awe and wonder rather than fear, like
they all sounded really poetic. The only things that seemed

(34:11):
really alarming to people were like the telegraphs suddenly having
sparks and getting fire. I am curious because you know,
at this time too, the idea of awe had a
layer of fear relation to it. Yeah, so there may
have been some fear in the mix.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah, but at least in terms of the accounts accessible
to me, which our accounts written in English. It seems
like in most places people realized what they were seeing.
They had either heard a description of an aurora before
or somebody was there who was like, oh, this is
the aurora. And it wasn't a matter of people thinking, oh, no,

(34:51):
the world is ending. It was more of a it's
the aurora. How cool and profound.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
Right.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Anyway, I said at the top of the show that
I find this to be a serendipitous story. There were
two different people looking at the right place at the
right time to see this solar flare. There was a
whole newly built array of observatories to record the data
about it and the geomagnetic storm that followed it. But
the converse of that is that with the development of

(35:20):
the telegraph, there was something on Earth that this geomagnetic
storm could actually break, at least temporarily. And today there
are way more things that could be damaged or knocked
offline by a massive solar event like this, and a
lot of them are way more integrated into our daily lives.
Like I read a couple of things that tried to

(35:41):
quantify the financial loss of the telegraph systems being down
for about eight hours and in some cases having to
be repaired. But today we have things like the power
grid and GPS and satellites and the Internet, all kinds
of things that are all around us and could be
knocked offline or destroyed in a similar event.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
Goodbye connectivity right.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Over the last twenty years, various governments and militaries and
even banks and insurance companies have sort of looked back
at the Carrington event to see what kinds of risks
we might be facing today, and a couple.

Speaker 1 (36:21):
Of recent events have highlighted these risks. In March of
nineteen eighty nine, a coronal mass ejection disabled much of
the power distribution network in Quebec, Canada. About six million
people were without power for nine hours and restoring power
involved rerouting electricity from other stations while damaged equipment was repaired.

(36:44):
During that event, the aurora was seen as far south
as Florida, and in July of twenty twelve, a massive
solar storm narrowly missed Earth. Conveniently, though, it hit the
Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory A or stereo AA, which is
in orbit around the Sun. So it was simultaneously a

(37:04):
close call and also a cool source of new data.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
I like there was another moment of serendipity of literally
hitting a solar observatory. Anyway, that's the Carrington event. I
find it fascinating. Do you have some listener mail? I
do have listener mail. The listener mail is from frequent
correspondent Caitlin, and Caitlyn wrote after our IUD episode. Kaitlyn wrote, Hi,

(37:33):
Tracy and Holly. I was listening to the behind the
scenes about iud's and was so glad to hear about
the buffet of paid management options Tracy was offered. Definitely
something missing from too many folks experiences at the GYN.
This is perhaps an example of skewed data, but I
have definitely noticed a trend towards more compassionate and comprehensive
patient care across several medical disciplines over the last decade

(37:57):
or so. I'm disabled, so I see a lot of
for a wide variety of reasons, and I've long been
in the habit of assuming that they won't be very
familiar with my conditions and the breadth of symptoms. When
I moved for grad school and was getting set up
with new folks, I showed up at the dentist with
my notebook full health history and a textbook about my
disability and its systemic implications, with a colorful tab on

(38:21):
the section about dental concerns. The office photocopied it for
my chart, earning my loyal patronage. I don't know if
it's because I present myself as well informed and aware
of procedures and practices, or if it's a true shift,
but the general experience has gone from being told this
needs to happen, sign.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
Here to this is the concern.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Here's what we recommend, here's other options, and if you
follow the recommendation, here is how we can manage pain, anxiety,
and any side effects. When I had to get a
transvaginal ultrasound, horrid an extra nurse came in to hold
my hand and I was offered noise canceling headphones and
was handed a warm blanket while I waited for them
to start. It felt so fancy, but that should be

(39:02):
the standard. This rambling email to say, I'm glad things
aren't shifting, but I also want people to know they
can and should advocate for themselves. Asking for basic care
and management isn't being precious or demanding. It's asking for
basic care. Unfortunately, it isn't always possible to leave a
provider who won't listen or isn't respectful of your wishes.

(39:22):
There are so many ways to get incremental improvements and
your healthcare. Hope all as well and that Holly is
enjoying spring while Tracy and the rest of us up
north finish winter. Caitlin, this email is from a little
more than a month ago. We are now solidly into
spring here in the North. I'm very excited about that.
Thank you so much, Kaitlin for this email. We also
have some photos of recent crimes done by Caitlin's Orange

(39:47):
Boy Kitty. So we have Orange Boy Kitty with a
bow tie up in the top of the closet and
in other shelves in the closet on top of the
air conditioner, one of those air conditioners that's like up
up high, mounted through the wall.

Speaker 3 (40:06):
These are misdemeanors. They're misdemeanors. I love all of them.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
And then some very lovely scenes of outdoor snowy, cold
looking river. Anyway, so thank you so much Caitlin for this.
So yeah, I think it's been a while, but we
sort of talked a little bit on the show about
general shifts in medicine in the US and how it
has moved some from being like a very paternalistic system

(40:33):
where a doctor who was normally male would just sort
of hand down pronouncements and not really explain anything and
sometimes would only tell men what was going on, so
the husband would get the news, and it was up
to the husband whether to tell the wife.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
Like, There's been a lot of things like that that
we've talked about. But I do.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
Think obviously there are still a lot of folks who
have a really hard time accessing care and finding providers
that seem like they listen to them. But it does
seem like there has been a movement more toward informed
consent for things and being more collaborative with patients. Yeah,

(41:15):
as that was this email was inspired by the IUD episode,
and that episode talked about like, there are these recommendations
for pain relief now and a lot of people are
still not being offered pain relief, which just why I
hope that episode would give people a tool that they

(41:36):
could use to say to their doctor, this is actually
what the recommendation is now to be offered pain relief.
So so thank you so much Caitlin for this email.
And then I love all of these pictures of very
naughty kitty cat.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
Misdemeanors.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Our bedroom closet, which is honestly one of the reasons
that we bought this house. There's the closet, and then
over on the left hand side of the closet there
is a door that I thought was going to lead
to like a fuse box or something like some archaic
electrical problem to have to deal with later. No, it
is how someone made shelves in the space underneath the

(42:18):
attic stairs, so it's like another closet inside the closet,
and boy do both my kitty cats like to get
in there anytime I opened the closet door. Because that
door doesn't fully shut the one on the inside and
love to get in there and sleep on my sweaters,
and I just let them. At this point, I'm like,

(42:40):
I'm gonna be covered in your fur anyway, So I
have some cat crying we could discuss on Friday.

Speaker 1 (42:45):
I'm not proud of her.

Speaker 2 (42:51):
So thank you so much again, Caitlin for this email
and for all your many emails that you send to us.
If you would like to send us a note, We're
a history podcast that i heeartradio dot If you would
like to see the show notes for this episode, it
is our website which is Missed Inhistory dot.

Speaker 3 (43:06):
Com, and you can subscribe to the show on.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
The iHeartRadio app or anywhere else if you'd like to
get your podcasts. Stuff you Missed in History Class is
a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
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