Whenever a geomagnetic storm is predicted, an air of concern inevitably unfolds, and although in most cases, there is nothing to worry about, there are exceptional cases where a Carrington event could occur. The fear of a recurrence of such an event is latent in the darkness, but before we worry, we must understand what a Carrington event is all about.
What is a Carrington event?
Richard Carrington was an amateur astronomer whose main interest was our host star. Every day he went to his telescope to analyze the mysterious Sun to better understand its erratic behavior. But on the morning of September 1, 1859, he noticed something different: a huge flare seemed to be brewing in the upper layer of the star and was quickly ejected into space directly at the Earth.
Carrington noticed that a huge explosion equivalent to ten billion atomic bombs had just taken place in the star. However, despite the magnitude of the phenomenon, nothing unusual happened during the course of the day, at least nothing that could be noticed on the mainland. But things changed on September 2, when the large cloud of solar plasma ejected during the coronal mass ejection touched Earth’s large protective shield and interacted with our planet’s magnetosphere.
The solar plasma particles managed to transform the skies of almost the entire planet from the blackness of the night to thousands of phosphorescent brushstrokes. The aurora borealis practically flooded the celestial landscape of almost the entire planet, an effect that can only be seen at the poles and during certain seasons of the year.
This fact marked for live those who managed to observe the beautiful auroras in regions closer to the equator. There are records of sightings in countries such as Colombia, Cuba, Chile, and even Spain, where this type of light could not be observed under normal conditions. But beyond the nocturnal spectacle, the Carrington event plunged the planet into isolation in terms of communications.
At that time, the telegraph was the most widely used means of communication, since telephone technology was not yet well established and was a novelty. And it was precisely the telegraph that suffered the consequences of the gigantic geomagnetic storm that ended up cutting off all radio communications.
Telegraph lines collapsed completely all over the world, and many of them were even irreparably damaged. On September 2, 1859, the world was completely cut off from communication, since it was impossible to transmit messages over long distances employing the radio waves transmitted by telegraphs.
This event, which later received the name ‘Carrington Event’ in honor of Richard Carrington, the discoverer of the coronal mass ejection, was engraved in history forever and of course, brought with it a myriad of infrastructural and economic losses.
Could the Carrington event happen again?
The Sun is an erratic star that we don’t know much about, solar physics is practically a science in its infancy, and many fear that the Carrington event could happen again, except this time the damage would be much worse than in the past.
As the solar cycle moves toward maximum activity, a variety of sunspots have begun to appear and enlarge in a matter of days and then release violent coronal mass ejections. Of course, geomagnetic storms are the order of the day and although they do not represent a danger to life on Earth, today more than ever there is a latent fear that a Carrington event could end up leaving us incommunicado again.
Physicist Pete Riley of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) in San Diego (USA), believes that the chance of a Carrington event repeating itself in the next 10 years is 12%. A very low probability to be honest, but still, a possibility that keeps those in charge of human communications on edge.
Such an event would not have the same effect as in 1859, because at that time the dependence on radio communications was much lower than it is today. A collapse of low-frequency radio waves would leave the whole world without the internet, without GPS, and without any kind of remote connection, and even worse, there is a latent danger of damage to devices that together, would bring losses in the millions.
Just remember that in early 2022, a geomagnetic storm damaged 40 satellites of Elon Musk’s Starlink company, rendering them completely useless. This is just one example of what could happen if a solar flare were to hit the Earth, which today is entirely dependent on the Internet and whose infrastructure is not prepared for a large-scale solar event.
Story originally published in Spanish in Ecoosfera