The light appeared to cover the whole firmament, apparently like a luminous cloud, through which the stars of the larger magnitude indistinctly shone. 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. Those who happened to be out late on Thursday night had an opportunity of witnessing another magnificent display of the auroral lights.
On Saturday 3 September 1859, the Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser reported: The aurora was visible from the poles to low latitude areas such as south-central Mexico, Cuba, Hawaii, the Australian state of Queensland, southern Japan and China, and even at lower latitudes very close to the equator, such as in Colombia. People in the northeastern United States could read a newspaper by the aurora's light. The aurora over the Rocky Mountains in the United States was so bright that the glow woke gold miners, who began preparing breakfast because they thought it was morning. Impact Auroras Aurora during a geomagnetic storm that was most likely caused by a coronal mass ejection from the Sun on, taken from the International Space StationĪuroras were seen around the world in both northern and southern hemispheres. Worldwide reports of the effects of the geomagnetic storm of 1859 were compiled and published by American mathematician Elias Loomis, which support the observations of Carrington and Stewart.
īecause of a geomagnetic solar flare effect (a "magnetic crochet") observed in the Kew Observatory magnetometer record by Scottish physicist Balfour Stewart, and a geomagnetic storm observed the following day, Carrington suspected a solar-terrestrial connection. Carrington and Hodgson compiled independent reports which were published side by side in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and exhibited their drawings of the event at the November 1859 meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society. Just before noon on 1 September, the English amateur astronomers Richard Christopher Carrington and Richard Hodgson independently recorded the earliest observations of a solar flare. Typical CMEs take several days to arrive at Earth, but it is believed that the relatively high speed of this CME was made possible by a prior CME, perhaps the cause of the large aurora event on 29 August that "cleared the way" of ambient solar wind plasma for the Carrington Event. The geomagnetic storm is thought to have been initiated by a major CME that traveled directly toward Earth, taking 17.6 hours to make the 150-million-kilometre (93 × 10 ^ 6 mi) journey. Estimates of the storm strength ( Dst) range from −0.80 to −1.75 µT. On 1–2 September 1859, one of the largest geomagnetic storms (as recorded by ground-based magnetometers) occurred. History Geomagnetic storm The July 2012 solar storm, as photographed by STEREO, was a CME of comparable strength to the one which is thought to have struck the Earth during the 1859 Carrington Event. It was observed and recorded independently by British astronomers Richard Christopher Carrington and Richard Hodgson-the first records of a solar flare.Ī geomagnetic storm of this magnitude occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended outages of the electrical power grid. The geomagnetic storm was associated with a very bright solar flare on 1 September 1859.
The geomagnetic storm was most likely the result of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetosphere. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally and caused sparking and even fires in multiple telegraph stations. The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, peaking from 1 to 2 September 1859 during solar cycle 10.
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