When The Sun Erupts

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 21 February 2024

⏱️ 13 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

We are at the height of the Sun's activity in its eleven year cycle, known to astronomers as the solar maximum. This means that over the next several months there's going to be a lot of solar activity. It's got us thinking back to 1859. That's when astronomer Richard Carrington was studying the Sun when he witnessed the most intense geomagnetic storm recorded in history. The storm, triggered by a giant solar flare, sent brilliant auroral displays across the globe causing electrical sparking and fires in telegraph stations. This encore episode, Regina talks to solar physicist Dr. Samaiyah Farid about what's now known as the Carrington event and about what may happen the next time a massive solar storm hits Earth.

Want to hear us cover other parts of the solar system? Email the show at [email protected] to let us know!

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:05.0	In 1859, an English scientist named Richard Carrington spent much of his time watching the
0:11.0	son's activity. And in September of that year he noticed
0:15.1	something next to a large sun spot, one of those dark areas on the sun's surface.
0:19.6	He saw a really big flash and he wasn't sure what happened.
0:24.5	Dr. Samaya Fareed is a solar physicist at Yale University.
0:28.3	He thought there was some kind of an accident with the instrument or something like that.
0:33.0	Less than a day later on the other side of the world,
0:35.5	a group of gold miners in the Rockies
0:37.5	woke up to what they thought was the sunrise.
0:40.0	Come out in a sense and people have started,
0:42.0	you know, going about the date and they
0:43.7	realize wait the sun is not rising this is actually just an aurora. They were
0:48.4	seeing the aurora borealis, the northern lights. This aurora was so huge it was witnessed in places where it's rarely seen, like Cuba.
0:56.0	This event even caused strong southern lights in places like Chile and Colombia.
1:01.0	And it was doing weird things to the technology of the era.
1:04.2	Telegraph machines sparked shocking operators,
1:07.0	catching the telegraph paper on fire, and some of the machines stopped working completely.
1:11.6	And in one case, an unplugged telegraph machine continued operating,
1:16.0	powered by a rogue current in the atmosphere. What Richard Carrington observed that day taught
1:21.0	us a lot about the sun and space weather.
1:23.2	People knew about the aurora but they didn't know it was related to the sun.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.