I work in a company that produces environment measurement and weather forecasting devices. I recently read a book of space weather, written by Heikki Nevanlinna. There was an interesting story of the most awesome space weather storm of all time. This post is an outline of that interesting phenomenon.
Back in September 2nd in 1859 the [...]
I work in a company that produces environment measurement and weather forecasting devices. I recently read a book of space weather, written by Heikki Nevanlinna. There was an interesting story of the most awesome space weather storm of all time. This post is an outline of that interesting phenomenon.
Back in September 2nd in 1859 the Earth was shaken by the strongest space weather storm for the last 150 years. The awesome northern lights were seen even in tropic, which is extremely rare. This magnificent phenomenon caused that communication systems of that time were down for hours. It has been estimated that a similar phenomenon would cause remarkable damages to the electricity and communication networks of today. [Space Weather, Nevanlinna -2006]
According to Nevanlinna, Richard Carrington (1826-1875) was observing the spots of the Sun in September 1st in 1859. He recognized a giant spot in the Sun, and exactly at 11:15 am GMT he saw a strong light in his projected picture of the Sun’s spot. This strong light arc lasted for five minutes. Hopefully there was another researcher who noticed this phenomenon. Richard Hodgson who was located in London noticed the solar flare as well. Later Carrington compared his findings to the measurements of Kew’s observatory in London and he noticed that there was one-hour interference in the magnetic field exactly at the same time with the phenomenon Carrington and Hodgson registered. Today this phenomenon is called as “solar flare effect”.
Today we know that a solar flare effect anticipates a space weather storm, which is caused by a plasma cloud coming from the Sun. It is a strong burst of solar wind. 17 hours after Carrington and Hodgson registered the solar flare, the strongest global magnetic storm of the Earth began. Northern sky was in fire. People even in tropic countries were able to see northern lights. The magnetic storm was so furious that observation systems were not able to give any meaningful results anymore.
Later studies have shown that the furious magnetic storm was caused by two sequential storms, from which the first one provided wonderful northern lights while the second storm really set the sky on fire. Back in those day researchers did not know that the storm was caused by the Sun. This was the first real evidence, but as Carrington said, more similar findings are needed until we can claim that the magnetic storm is caused by the Sun.
Carrington and Hodgson were very lucky, because only a few similar phenomena, although much weaker, were registered during the next dozens of years. It took about 80 years until radio probing provided evidence enough to say that solar flares cause the growth of ionization in the ionosphere.
The full story was written in “Avaruussää” (Space Weather), written by Heikki Nevanlinna, 2006. The book is written in Finnish. More about this in English you can read from “The Great Historical Geomagnetic Storm of 1859: A Modern Look”, Advances in Space Research, 38, 2006.
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6 Responses
Nice post. Very interesting.
Thanks Mark! I like this subject as well, as well as northern lights in general. I grew up in northern Finland and I have seen spectacular northern lights many times.
I am going to have to read the entire story. Very interesting. I have never seen the northern light, other than in movies and pictures. My question is; What would a storm like this do today with the hole in the ozone and weakness in our atomosphere as whole? Are we ever going to see another one of the magnitude in our lifetime? How often do these “Major” storms happen?
Hi Tammy, thanks for stopping by and leaving your comment!
That’s a good question. I cannot say much about that because I am not a northern light specialist, but I do know few pro astronomers in my University in Helsinki. I’d like to present your question to them and write another post based on their answer. Your question really is interesting!
It looks like these happen in few hundred years. It is difficult to say if we are going to see them. Anyhow, Sun’s behavior is predictable, so “Sun specialists” could probably answer this question.
I saw really spectacular northern light in Lapland in Finland in 2003. At that time the Sun was very active and “gamma bursts” hit the north pole around the new year’s eve. It was absolutely awesome. I was stunned and my son was even afraid of it. It was so white and bright.
Oh, you should see the northern lights at least once!
I want to know that after 1859 anyother storm hit the earth or not. Or was it the last time..
Samia, there have been storms later on as well, but this one has been the biggest of all time that has been recorded. I saw really awesome northern lights in 2003 when the Sun was very active.