Carrington event - August 28, 1859

On this day in history, one of the largest recorded geomagnetic storms, known as the Carrington event, began.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Welcome to This Day in History Class, where
History waits for no One. Today is August. The day

(00:24):
was August eighteen fifty nine. Astronomers began noticing sun spot
clusters and auroras began appearing in the sky electric currents
charged through telegraph systems around the world. Sun spots are darker,
cooler spots that appear on the Sun's surface that are

(00:44):
caused by interactions with the Sun's magnetic field. Solar flares
and coronal mass ejections usually originate from the magnetically active
areas around sun spots. A coronal mass ejection happens when
a cloud of energetic and highly magnetized plaza is ejected
from the Sun, which can cause radio and magnetic disturbances

(01:07):
on Earth. Coronal mass ejections that struck Earth's magnetosphere led
to one of the largest geomagnetic storms on record. On
September one, amateur astronomer Richard Carrington went into his private
observatory on his estate outside of London. He turned his
telescope towards the Sun and noticed a group of sun spots,

(01:30):
and he drew a picture of the Sun spots. At
eighteen in the morning, he saw a white light flash
at two places in the sun spot group. He later
wrote this in a paper published in the Monthly Notices
of the Royal Astronomical Society. My first impression was that
by some chance array of light had penetrated a hole

(01:50):
in the screen attached to the object glass by which
the general image is thrown into shade. For the brilliancy
was fully equal to that of the wrecked sunlight. That
same day, amateur astronomer Richard Hodgson also observed a large
sun spot group and white light flare. The sun activity
faded away after a few minutes, but about seventeen hours

(02:14):
after Carrington observed the flash, Aurora's lit up the sky
around the world as far south as Panama. People woke
up late at night thinking the sun had risen. The
sky looked blood red. In some places, telegraph systems failed,
and there were reports that sparks from telegraph machines shocked

(02:35):
operators and set papers on fire. Telegraph poles and receiving
stations also reportedly caught on fire. Some operators found that
they could transmit messages without battery power, only using a
rural current. The a rural displaze that appeared on September
two and third, happened only several months from the peak

(02:57):
of the sun spot cycle. The number of sun spots
and other signs of solar magnetic activity fluctuate over an
eleven year cycle. At the time, scientists did not understand
how Aurora's work. Some guests that the auroras were caused
by falling debris from active volcanoes or by reflections from icebergs,

(03:18):
but many thought that the displays were a sign of
a disaster that was about to happen, or a message
from God. Even though Carrington advised against linking the flare
he had seen to the events that followed. But since
then it has been determined that auroral displays are the
result of solar winds that caused disturbances in the magnetic sphere.

(03:40):
The geomagnetic storm that occurred in eighteen fifty nine, also
known as the Carrington event today, was one of the
biggest solar storms ever recorded. The Sun had sent off
two coronal mass ejections that reached Earth. Based on ice
core samples, it was the biggest solar storm in the
last five hundred years. It has been estimated that The

(04:03):
solar storm costs the global telegraph system around three d
thousand dollars, plus other costs related to businesses, stock markets,
and individual families. Usually, these solar storms do not hit Earth,
but if a geomagnetic storm like the eighteen fifty nine
one happened today, damages would be more extensive and cost

(04:26):
would be a lot higher. Similar, but less severe geomagnetic
storms have hit Earth since the eighteen fifty nine event.
I'm Eaves step Coode and hopefully you know a little
more about history today than you did yesterday. Get more
Notes from History on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook at t

(04:47):
d i h C podcast. We'll be back with more
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