A Super Solar Flare

May 6, 2008: At 11:18 AM on the cloudless morning of Thursday, September 1, 1859, 33-year-old Richard
Carrington—widely acknowledged to be one of England's foremost solar astronomers—was in his well-
appointed private observatory. Just as usual on every sunny day, his telescope was projecting an 11-inch-wide
image of the sun on a screen, and Carrington skillfully drew the sunspots he saw.

On that morning, he was capturing the likeness of an enormous group of sunspots. Suddenly, before his eyes,
two brilliant beads of blinding white light appeared over the sunspots, intensified rapidly, and became kidney-
shaped. Realizing that he was witnessing something unprecedented and "being somewhat flurried by the
surprise," Carrington later wrote, "I hastily ran to call someone to witness the exhibition with me. On returning
within 60 seconds, I was mortified to find that it was already much changed and enfeebled." He and his witness
watched the white spots contract to mere pinpoints and disappear.

It was 11:23 AM. Only five minutes had passed.

Just before dawn the next day, skies all over planet Earth erupted in red, green, and purple auroras so brilliant
that newspapers could be read as easily as in daylight. Indeed, stunning auroras pulsated even at near tropical
latitudes over Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, El Salvador, and Hawaii.

Even more disconcerting, telegraph systems worldwide went haywire. Spark discharges shocked telegraph
operators and set the telegraph paper on fire. Even when telegraphers disconnected the batteries powering the
lines, aurora-induced electric currents in the wires still allowed messages to be transmitted.

"What Carrington saw was a white-light solar flare—a magnetic explosion on the sun," explains David
Hathaway, solar physics team lead at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Now we know that solar flares happen frequently, especially during solar sunspot maximum. Most betray their
existence by releasing X-rays (recorded by X-ray telescopes in space) and radio noise (recorded by radio
telescopes in space and on Earth). In Carrington's day, however, there were no X-ray satellites or radio
telescopes. No one knew flares existed until that September morning when one super-flare produced enough
light to rival the brightness of the sun itself.

"It's rare that one can actually see the brightening of the solar surface," says Hathaway. "It takes a lot of energy
to heat up the surface of the sun!"
Above: A modern solar flare recorded Dec. 5, 2006, by the X-ray Imager onboard NOAA's GOES-13 satellite.
The flare was so intense, it actually damaged the instrument that took the picture. Researchers believe
Carrington's flare was much more energetic than this one.

The explosion produced not only a surge of visible light but also a mammoth cloud of charged particles and
detached magnetic loops—a "CME"—and hurled that cloud directly toward Earth. The next morning when the
CME arrived, it crashed into Earth's magnetic field, causing the global bubble of magnetism that surrounds our
planet to shake and quiver. Researchers call this a "geomagnetic storm." Rapidly moving fields induced
enormous electric currents that surged through telegraph lines and disrupted communications.

"More than 35 years ago, I began drawing the attention of the space physics community to the 1859 flare and its
impact on telecommunications," says Louis J. Lanzerotti, retired Distinguished Member of Technical Staff at
Bell Laboratories and current editor of the journal Space Weather. He became aware of the effects of solar
geomagnetic storms on terrestrial communications when a huge solar flare on August 4, 1972, knocked out
long-distance telephone communication across Illinois. That event, in fact, caused AT&T to redesign its power
system for transatlantic cables. A similar flare on March 13, 1989, provoked geomagnetic storms that disrupted
electric power transmission from the Hydro Québec generating station in Canada, blacking out most of the
province and plunging 6 million people into darkness for 9 hours; aurora-induced power surges even melted
power transformers in New Jersey. In December 2005, X-rays from another solar storm disrupted satellite-to-
ground communications and Global Positioning System (GPS) navigation signals for about 10 minutes. That
may not sound like much, but as Lanzerotti noted, "I would not have wanted
to be on a commercial airplane being guided in for a landing by GPS or on a
ship being docked by GPS during that 10 minutes."

Right: Power transformers damaged by the March 13, 1989, geomagnetic

Another Carrington-class flare would dwarf these events. Fortunately, says

"In the 160-year record of geomagnetic storms, the Carrington event is the
biggest." It's possible to delve back even farther in time by examining arctic
ice. "Energetic particles leave a record in nitrates in ice cores," he
explains. "Here again the Carrington event sticks out as the biggest in 500
years and nearly twice as big as the runner-up."
These statistics suggest that Carrington flares are once in a half-millennium events. The statistics are far from
solid, however, and Hathaway cautions that we don't understand flares well enough to rule out a repeat in our
lifetime.

And what then?

Lanzerotti points out that as electronic technologies have become more sophisticated and more embedded into
everyday life, they have also become more vulnerable to solar activity. On Earth, power lines and long-distance
telephone cables might be affected by auroral currents, as happened in 1989. Radar, cell phone communications,
and GPS receivers could be disrupted by solar radio noise. Experts who have studied the question say there is
little to be done to protect satellites from a Carrington-class flare. In fact, a recent paper estimates potential
damage to the 900-plus satellites currently in orbit could cost between $30 billion and $70 billion. The best
solution, they say: have a pipeline of comsats ready for launch.

Humans in space would be in peril, too. Spacewalking astronauts might have only minutes after the first flash of
light to find shelter from energetic solar particles following close on the heels of those initial photons. Their
spacecraft would probably have adequate shielding; the key would be getting inside in time.

No wonder NASA and other space agencies around the world have made the study and prediction of flares a
priority. Right now a fleet of spacecraft is monitoring the sun, gathering data on flares big and small that may
eventually reveal what triggers the explosions. SOHO, Hinode, STEREO, ACE and others are already in orbit
while new spacecraft such as the Solar Dynamics Observatory are readying for launch.

Research won't prevent another Carrington flare, but it may make the "flurry of surprise" a thing of the past.