The Carrington Event
A day after an astronomer saw a flash on the Sun, auroras lit up the tropics and telegraph lines threw sparks.
What was reported
On the morning of 1 September 1859, the astronomer Richard Carrington was sketching sunspots at his observatory in Redhill when two patches of intense white light flared up among them for about five minutes. Richard Hodgson saw the same thing independently in London.
Less than a day later, the strongest geomagnetic storm on record struck Earth. Auroras were seen as far south as the Caribbean, bright enough in places to read by, and telegraph systems failed, gave operators electric shocks, and in some cases kept working with their batteries disconnected.
Explanations offered
Carrington had seen the first recorded solar flare, which came with a huge burst of charged particles from the Sun, a coronal mass ejection, that hit Earth's magnetic field. A storm that strong today could damage satellites and power grids, which is why space weather is now watched closely.
- When
- 1 September 1859
- Where
- Redhill, Surrey, England
- Witnesses
- Richard Carrington, and people all over the world
- Status
- Explained
Famous cases are real, widely reported events. Each file sets out what witnesses said and the explanations that have been offered, without taking a side.