Episode Details

The Carrington Event was a massive geomagnetic storm that happened in 1859. It led to expanded understanding of solar phenomena.

Research:

• “Great Aurora of 1859. Art. XLII – The Great Auroral Exhibition of August 28th to September 4th, 1859.” American Journal of Science. Ser. 2. Vol. 28. July-November 1859.
• Cardenas, Freddy Moreno et al. “The Grand Aurorae Borealis Seen in Colombia in 1859.” Preprint submitted to Advances in Space Research. August 21, 2015.
• Cliver, E.W. “The 1859 space weather event: Then and now.” Advances in Space Research. 38 (2006) 119-129.
• Cliver, E.W. and L. Svalgaard. “The 1859 Solar-Terrestrial Disturbance and the Current Limits of Extreme Space Weather Activity.” Solar Physics. (2004) 224: 407–422.
• Cliver, Edward W. and William F. Dietrich. “The 1859 space weather event revisited: limits of extreme activity.” J. Space Weather Space Clim. 3 (2013) A31 DOI:10.1051/swsc/2013053
• Dobrijevic, Daisy and Andrew May. “The Carrington Event: History's greatest solar storm.” Space.com. 5/20/2022. https://www.space.com/the-carrington-event
• Giegengack, Robert. “The Carrington Coronal Mass Ejection of 1859.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society , DECEMBER 2015, Vol. 159, No. 4. Via JSTOR.https://www.jstor.org/stable/26159195
• Green, James L, and Scott Boardsen. “Duration and extent of the great auroral storm of 1859.” Advances in space research : the official journal of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) vol. 38,2 (2006): 130-135. doi:10.1016/j.asr.2005.08.054
• Green, James L. et al. “Eyewitness Reports of the Great Auroral Storm of 1859.” Submitted to Advances in Space Research. NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS) 20050210157. 8/5/2005.
• Haeberle, Tom. “The Carrington Affair!” Amateur Astronomers Association Eyepiece. 9/1/2018. https://aaa.org/2018/09/01/the-carrington-affair/
• Hayakawa, Hisashi et al. “Temporal and Spatial Evolutions of a Large Sunspot Group and Great Auroral Storms Around the Carrington Event in 1859.” Space Weather. 8/29/2019. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2019SW002269
• Hodgson, R. “On a Curious Appearance Seen in the Sun.” Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society vol. 19-20 (1858-1860). https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/20/1/15/983497
• Hodžić, Jasna. “The Carrington Event of 1859 Disrupted Telegraph Lines. A ‘Miyake Event’ Would Be Far Worse.” JSTOR Daily. 9/7/2023. https://daily.jstor.org/the-carrington-event-of-1859-disrupted-telegraph-lines/
• Howard, R.A. (2006). A Historical Perspective on Coronal Mass Ejections. In Solar Eruptions and Energetic Particles (eds N. Gopalswamy, R. Mewaldt and J. Torsti). https://doi.org/10.1029/165GM03
• Josefowicz, Diane. “The British Magnetic Scheme (1839-1851): People and Institutions.” Victorian Web. https://victorianweb.org/science/geomagnetism/magneticcrusade.html
• Kaminski, Isabella. “'The fate of nations and the fall of kingdoms': History's epic theories of what causes aurora.” BBC. 11/16/2025. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20251114-historys-epic-theories-of-what-causes-aurora
• Kimball, D.S. “A Study of the Aurora of 1859.” Scientific Report No. 6. NSF Grant No. Y/22.6/327. April 1960.
• Klein, Christopher. “A Perfect Solar Superstorm: The 1859 Carrington Event.” History. 1/29/2025. https://www.history.com/articles/a-perfect-solar-superstorm-the-1859-carrington-event
• Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs, Hisashi Hayakawa. “A candidate auroral report in the Bamboo Annals, indicating a possible extreme space weather event in the early 10th century BCE.” Advances in Space Research. Volume 72, Issue 12. 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.asr.2022.01.01
• Mills, Virginia. “A message from Alexander von Humboldt.” The Royal Society. 9/23/2019. https://royalsociety.org/blog/2019/09/a-message-from-alexander-von-h