On this day in space! Sept 1, 1859: Most powerful solar storm ever peaks!

News
By last updated

On September 1, 1859, the most powerful solar storm since records began, the Carrington Event, peaked.

On September 1, 1859, the most powerful solar storm since records began, the Carrington Event, peaked.

Read More: The Carrington Event: History's greatest solar storm

The Carrington Event was triggered by a solar flare and an eruption of plasma from the sun called a coronal mass ejection (CME).

A X-class solar flare erupts from the sun, in 1859, an event such as this gave rise to the largest solar and geomagnetic storm since records began (Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/SDO)

Richard Carrington, an amateur skywatcher in a small town called Redhill, near London in England, had been sketching sunspots across the solar disk since August as they increased. On Sept.1, he was blinded by a sudden flash of light that represented the CME.

Around 18 hours later, the CME has travelled the 90 million miles (150 million kilometers) or so between Earth and the sun to lash our planet's magnetic bubble, the magnetosphere. This resulted in telegraph systems going down and stunning auroras over Earth.

Carrington connected the geomagnetic storm to what he described as the "white light flare" that blinded him, and the field of space weather was born. The event was named after the English scientist.

On This Day in Space: See our full 365-day video archive!

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: community@space.com.

Hanneke Weitering
Hanneke Weitering
Contributing expert

Hanneke Weitering is a multimedia journalist in the Pacific Northwest reporting on the future of aviation at FutureFlight.aero and Aviation International News and was previously the Editor for Spaceflight and Astronomy news here at Space.com. As an editor with over 10 years of experience in science journalism she has previously written for Scholastic Classroom Magazines, MedPage Today and The Joint Institute for Computational Sciences at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. After studying physics at the University of Tennessee in her hometown of Knoxville, she earned her graduate degree in Science, Health and Environmental Reporting (SHERP) from New York University. Hanneke joined the Space.com team in 2016 as a staff writer and producer, covering topics including spaceflight and astronomy. She currently lives in Seattle, home of the Space Needle, with her cat and two snakes. In her spare time, Hanneke enjoys exploring the Rocky Mountains, basking in nature and looking for dark skies to gaze at the cosmos. 

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.