This is Dr. Fred Walter, a professor at Stony Brook University. He studies star birth, stellar weather, and star death. He came to our meeting and talked about The Carrington Event. The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, peaking from 1 to 2 September 1859 during solar cycle 10. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally and caused sparking and even fires in multiple telegraph stations. The geomagnetic storm was most likely the result of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetosphere. The geomagnetic storm was associated with a very bright solar flare on 1 September 1859. It was observed and recorded independently by British astronomers Richard Christopher Carrington and Richard Hodgson—the first records of a solar flare. A geomagnetic storm of this magnitude occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended outages of the electrical power grid. It was an amazing presentation!
It boggles my mind to think the British Astronomers were studying this solar flare back in 1859. Nice that you could enjoy this presentation.
ReplyDeleteJoan
Sounds like a great presentation. This must have seemed very scary back in 1859 but seems just as scary now! betsey
ReplyDeleteIt IS really scary now! The Canadians, being further north on Earth, get more of the effect of these CME's and they have started taking efforts of mitigate CME's like being able to quickly disconnect transformers and take other measures to "harden" their electrical grid. The United States has done nothing to harden our grid. That's a disgrace.
ReplyDelete