Today’s post is part of a special series here on Planet Pailly called Sciency Words. Every Friday, we take a look at a new and interesting scientific term to help us all expand our scientific vocabularies together. Today’s word is:
THE CARRINGTON EVENT
In 1859, British astronomer Richard Carrington was studying the Sun when he observed two bright flashes of light. This turned out to be a major solar storm. As luck would have it, the brunt of the storm was aimed directly at Earth.
Here’s the good news: the world didn’t end.
The bad news is that when the massive cloud of solar ejecta hit Earth, it triggered what’s called a geomagnetic storm, the worst geomagnetic storm on record.
Solar storms like the Carrington Event, pictured above, don’t hit Earth directly. Instead, they mess with Earth’s magnetic field, which in turn messes with our technology.
Telegraph wires picked up and transmitted energy from the geomagnetic storm, causing mayhem for telegraph operators around the globe. Operators received nasty electric shocks. Their equipment melted and/or emitted sparks. In some cases, those sparks ignited fires.
The global economy (such as it was in 1859) was disrupted, as were news services and personal correspondences, but things soon returned to normal. As I said, the Carrington Event was not the end of the world.
But imagine if such a thing happened today, with all our phone lines, Internet connections, power grids, airplanes, and satellites? What would happen to our computers, televisions, and microwave ovens? Fortunately for us, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is on top of this issue, and their Space Weather Prediction Center will be the subject of Monday’s post.
P.S.: If you love learning new words as much as I do, please check out Michelle Joelle’s blog Stories and Soliloquies. Today (assuming I got the date right), she’s launching a new series called the Philosopher’s Lexicon, so now we can all expand our philosophical vocabularies together!
Sources
The 1859 Carrington Event from Tempo.
Monster Radiation Burst from the Sun from BBC News.
The Solar Storm of 1859 from Wikipedia.
Thanks for sharing this! I love random bits of knowledge, and actually helpful for my propoed Sci-fi
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Oh good! I’m so glad to help a fellow writer!
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This was a fun bit of trivia… a good idea for a weekly series!
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Thanks, John!
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Thank you for both the shout out, and the awesome inspiration for my series. Your series here is one of my favorite blog reads, so I hope you don’t mind the imitation 🙂
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I’m actually really flattered, and I’m looking forward to some great posts in the Philosopher’s Lexicon.
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Also, of course, another wonderful post this week. As Jennifer Austin mentions above, what a great writing prompt!
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Thanks, Michelle. A modern day Carrington Event would certainly create some drama.
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[…] Friday, we talked about the Carrington Event. A massive solar storm triggered a geomagnetic storm that wrecked the technological infrastructure […]
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[…] protects our planet during these storms, but not our technology. We learned this the hard way in 1859 when a huge coronal mass ejection struck Earth head on. It was too much, and Earth’s magnetic […]
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[…] like the Carrington Event of 1859, the Tunguska Event serves as a warning. Space is dangerous. Space is deadly. Earth can’t […]
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