The Carrington Event is known to be history's most destructive solar storm.
The Carrington Event
Back on September 1, 1859, Richard Carrington, a British astronomer, was examining some strange dark blobs in the solar atmosphere. As he was doing so, a bright blast caught his eye.
According to Live Science, the shine lasted for almost five minutes. This case made history with the first ever recorded solar flare.
However, this was not the main event that was named after the British astronomer. After less than 48 hours, an intense solar storm slammed onto the planet.
This event is now referred to as the Carrington Event. According to Space.com, the strong solar storm happened just a few months prior to the 1860 solar maximum. The surge of charged particles made telegraph offices light up in flames and caused vibrant auroras in areas as far south as Hawaii and Cuba.
Until now, this event has been regarded as history's most intense solar storm. Live Science adds that the blobs that Carrington was investigating back then could have offered insight regarding the arrival of a nasty occurrence.
Monstrous Sunspots Signify Solar Maximum
While modern astronomers now understand this, Carrington may not have known that the quantity and size of visible sunspots are directly linked to the 11-year solar cycle of activity. When bigger and more sunspots become observable, this means that the sun is nearing its peak, also known as the solar maximum.
According to NASA, when the Sun is at its solar maximum, the greatest number of sunspots can be observed. As this peak nears, solar flares and CMEs (coronal mass ejections) become even more prevalent.
While the pre-Carrington Event look of the Sun remains a mystery, the British astronomer was able to sketch the sunspots that he observed. He later passed these sketches on to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
The sketches reveal a huge dark blob grouping that Carrington thought shared the same width as Jupiter. In 2019, a reanalysis of his sketches was conducted and detailed in the Space Weather journal. The findings estimate that the sunspots covered 9% to 14% of the width of the solar disk.
Though such dimensions are remarkably huge for sunspot groups, they are not unheard of. Spaceweather.com adds that back in November 2003, scientists were able to observe a roughly same-sized sunspot. This was right before the most intense solar flare in modern times hit.
Spaceweather also processed the sketches of Carrington into the form of a satellite snap of the 2003 sunspot. It details both monstrous sunspots together.
While sunspot activity has been dramatically increasing, nothing as large as the Carrington sunspots have been observed. Whether the solar maximum will have the same scale as the Carrington Event or not remains a game of chance. Nevertheless, scientists will keep checking for any signs.
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