What If The Carrington Event Happened Today? Experts Discussed the Reprecussions if Extremely Powerful Solar Storm Hits Modern Society

What would happen if the Carrington Event, the biggest solar storm ever noted, occurred right now?

Power disruptions that would last for years may result from a solar storm as large as the Carrington Event today.

(Photo : Photo: NASA/SDO AIA / Wikimedia Commons)

Carrington Event

Richard Carrington, a British astronomer, observed a burst of white light on the sun's surface in 1859.

This was the Carrington Event, as it is now known to scientists, and it was the biggest solar storm ever seen.

From Canada to Australia, it was connected to the amazing auroras known as the Northern and Southern Lights, which were visible in the sky close to both the poles and the equator.

The gigantic solar outburst also led to electricity outages from Boston to Paris.

Even while the Carrington Event may feel like ancient history, given how dependent we are on electricity now, there are many worries about what may happen if a similar or even more intense event occurs on Earth.

On September 2, 1859, at around 11:18 a.m. Carrington was looking at a collection of sunspots south of London in the town of Redhill when he noticed what he subsequently described as "a peculiar eruption of light which lasted nearly five minutes."

A 2016 research published in the journal Advances in Space Research determined that this was the first solar flare ever observed and documented.

According to the 2016 analysis, the Carrington Event ultimately impacted about half of the telegraphic stations in the United States.

Also Read: Can Powerful Solar Storms Have the Power to Destroy the Entire Planet?  

Coronal Mass Ejections

(Photo : Photo: NASA / Unsplash)

According to NASA, solar flares are powerful explosions of plasma and radiation connected to sunspots and are the most explosive phenomena ever to occur in the solar system.

Based on a paper published in the 2021 issue of the journal Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics by Hugh Hudson, a solar physicist at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, solar flares are caused by the rapid release of magnetic energy that has been building up on our star.

Coronal mass ejections are enormous solar material bubbles that frequently accompany solar flares (CMEs).

NASA noted that these eruptions might contain billions of tons of plasma, or clouds of electrically charged particles, which are capable of erupting at speeds of up to millions of miles per hour

According to Hudson's research, the Carrington Event caused a geomagnetic storm on Earth.

Affecting Technology

(Photo : Photo: NASA's Earth Observatory / Wikimedia Commons)

According to NOAA, solar flares can produce strong electrical currents in the magnetosphere.

Long stretches of electrically conductive material, such as power lines, communications cables, and pipelines, can have electrical currents these currents, which in turn may cause magnetic disturbances in the Earth's subsurface.

Wrecking the Modern World

Compared to the time of the Carrington Event, the world is now far more reliant on energy.

A comparably intense solar flare directed at Earth, as opposed to away from our globe, where it would not directly affect our world, might wreak unprecedented harm if it exploded right now.

According to research published in the 2021 Astrophysical Journal, superflares 10 times more powerful than the Carrington Event may occur every 3,000 years, while ones 100 times more energetic may happen every 6,000 years.

However, Hudson noted that "little is known" about the rates at which our sun, in particular, may produce Carrington-like or stronger flares.

Related Article: Expert Warns 'Situation Worse than Covid' if Government Ignores Solar Flare Defense

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