Documenting the first time a solar flare impacted Earth technology
The 1848 sunspot that delayed a train in England
When the first telegraph lines were first being installed along railroad lines in the 1840s, they inadvertently also began the first tool for detecting extreme solar weather events as they hit the Earth. The electric lines interacted with the increased energy pumped into the Earth’s magnetic field by the geomagnetic storm flung from the Sun, sometimes making operations impossible.
Historians have been trying to determine the first time this kind of thing happened, and new research has found that the supposedly first recorded event, documented as having occurred in 1841, actually occurred in 1848, and was thus the second recorded event.
You can read the research paper here [pdf]. It is a fascinating detective story. That 1848 event was originally reported in the journal Nature in 1871 with an incorrect date, describing it as follows:
On the 18th of October 1841, a very intense magnetic disturbance was recorded, and amongst other curious facts mentioned is that of the detention of the 10.5 p.m. express train at Exeter sixteen minutes, as from the magnetic disturbance it was impossible to ascertain if the line was clear at Starcross. The superintendent at Exeter reported the next morning that some one was playing tricks with the instruments, and would not let them work.
The geomagnetic storm made it impossible to send or receive telegraph messages for a short time.
The new research has found that this event likely occurred on October 18, 1848, not 1841. The image to the right, figure 4 from the paper, is the sunspot record for that day. A similar event occurred in March 1847, and is now thought to be the first time the Sun directly interfered with modern human technology.
The most well known early major solar event, dubbed today the Carrington Event, took place in 1859. Triggered by one of the most powerful solar flares yet recorded, it produced intense auroras in much lower latitudes than normal and caused the failure of telegraph systems across North America and Europe. It is still cited by fear-mongers as a sign of how space weather could someday destroy us, despite now more than a half century of planning by utilities to protect the electrical grid from just such an event.
Similarly, the press release describing the research above fear-mongers in the same way. It almost appears to be a brainless knee-jerk response, required in intellectual circles whenever the chance presents itself. It is as if Chicken Little has possessed the brains of academia, and now rules their every action.
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There are parts of Canada where space weather has been influential.
In March 1989, a geomagnetic storm caused some of Hydro Quebec’s transmission lines to shut down, leaving much of the province without power for several hours.
I was living in Alberta at the time and I remember that the night sky was lit up with aurora. It extended past the local zenith towards the southern horizon.
Earlier than that, I was living in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan during the 1980s. During that time, the aurora was quite active in the local area and I remember the sky to the north of the city frequently being lit up at night. But that geomagnetic activity also produced currents which promoted corrosion of municipal water pipes, so there were a few leaks that needed repairs.
That 1989 event triggered aggressive action by utilities to shield the systems as well as take protective actions when a storm is expected to arrive. Since then no space weather event has been a problem.
When the ’89 blackout occurred, I was working for a company that had a client in southern Quebec. After the power outage, there was speculation about what caused it.
I mentioned to a counterpart at the client firm that someone suggested that the aurora might have been the reason. His reaction was something like, “Yeah, right.” According to him, Hydro Quebec had reliability problems and blackouts occurred occasionally.
It took some time before that suggestion about the aurora was proven to be correct.
I’m not surprised that it was the cause. Spaceweather.com has an auroral map on its main page. I check it from time to time when I can’t hear much on the amateur radio bands and there’s usually a humdinger of a geomagnetic storm in progress.
Back in the 1989+ time frame, I was a principal in trying to get my employer, TRW into the commercial space launch business. We had a sound technology and experience base, and thought that if we got enough customers lined up, the company would invest (it obviously never happened). In addition to our anchor customer, IRIDIUM, we got attached to Ball Aerospace and their attempt to get utility companies to hire them to launch a solar storm early warning spacecraft. They had a great pitch, and it fell completely flat with every utility they approached. Ball showed, correctly I believe, the cost of grid equipment damage from a major solar storm, and went on to show what the consequences to the country might be. The utilities – every one of them – shrugged, and said “We’re insured.” I guess Ball was ahead of its time.
I bet you were making this pitch before the 1989 solar storm. And you likely weren’t making it to the Canadian utilities that were hit hardest by the storm.
Even so, the pitch would have failed because at that time companies like utilities always expected the government (NASA) to pay for these kinds of satellites. And because launch costs then were so high, they also didn’t think they could afford the cost.
My condolences for having to live in Northern Canada. And technically you were barely north. I, coming from Toronto am a distinct southern snob. (American friends do not understand). My Sister in law loves doing the visiting doctor thing in the very far north. Like Iqualit or Fort Simpson. Way too far north for me.
Were the 1848 and 1859 (Carrington) events actually solar flares, or were they Coronal Mass Ejections?
While solar glares are powerful, I thought CMEs (blasts of plasma) were need to trigger the types of events experienced in 1848 and 1859. If so, the CME event itself must have occurred a few days before Oct 18, since it takes the plasma 3 or 4 days to get here.
So was that date assigned to the event because there happened to be a sunspot diagram recorded on that date? Or are there train records that independently record the event on that date?
Energy from the sun arrives at the earth at light speed.
Mass from the sun, having weight, travels much slower.
Most solar flares are made up of hydrogen and helium (like the solar wind). Considered a Solar surface event, (9,500°) super charged by flowing through the electrical plasma in the corona sphere, (2 to 30 million°) travels on average about a million miles an hour or more arriving in days.
Coronal mass ejection has considerably more mass than hydrogen or helium. Sub solar surface material weighs more and is more energetic in its potential and travels at two or more million miles an hour arriving in two days from the observed event.
The Carrington event Arrived the day after it was observed. (4,000,000 miles an hour?) From Jeff’s link;
“Carrington Event would have been around X80-class. That puts this flare at around 100 million times more powerful than an X1-class flare!“
As Zimmerman pointed out, modern systems have automatic switching for when “over current” occurs. And arc ground pathways for lightning and other malfunctions that occur in highwinds.
Government chicken Littles find it necessary to create a “state of fear” in the public so politicians have an excuse for getting funding for their benefactors or their state constituents for the little piggies that lineup at the pork troughs from where they feed from. (Communism, the domino effect, The Cold War, terrorism, global warming etc. etc., look up “false flag” for more examples of manufactured crisis)
When I was traveling through Canada from Alaska in the fall of 81… a high pressure over Canada, with no clouds and no moon, made the best observation for a solar event that I was driving through all night. The strangest thing happened, which I never forgot, water was falling from a cloudless sky! Suddenly, a 100% humidity that saturated my clothing! Forcing me to use the windshield wipers on a clear night. That’s when I realized what’s causing ocean levels to go up 5 to 8 inches per century in what I thought was a closed system.
The hydrogen filled solar gases of methane (carbon), ammonia (nitrogen), lithium, and other lite elements, is the fire lighting up the sky above my head. Coronal mass elements reacting with earths oxygen… The reds are oxidized monoatomic oxygen/nitrogen from the upper atmosphere into poisonous reactive unstable H20.
As the gases descend to 50 miles high, it reacts with normal oxygen, turning green, blue, and other colors depending on its substance and it’s mixing with other colors (Red and blue makes purple) creating normal water, heavier than air six atom molecule of H402. (spectrograph or the Buxton burner test reveals the Solar/auroral substance that is burning or oxidizing in the upper atmosphere… every element reveals itself)
In 2004? When the movie the “perfect storm” was popular, we had a solar storm that was slow moving heading towards earth that was overtaken by a stronger storm they nicknamed the “perfect storm” that combined to create fantastic Aurora‘s deep into the lower 48. That was the first time atmospheric carbon dioxide levels exceeded 400 ppm. This was recorded in the “Arctic”! Not in Hawaii, that means the source of carbon had come from the sun! even so, although 1/10 of the crust of the earth is carbon… It still remains a trace gas in the atmosphere because lime stone mountains are slow to release carbon for plant life… so a fresh source like the sun provides the necessary carbon and other nutrients that maintains luscious life on this planet. not man-made, and does not cause global warming. (at less than 1/2 of 1/10 of 1% of the atmosphere, CO2 can only retain less than 1/2 of 1/10 of 1% of the heat emitted by the earth… even so, only the bottom 1/16 of the surface area of the molecule is radiating downward, the rest of the molecule is radiating outward or upward, non-efficiently retaining any heat for earth whatsoever… almost unmeasurable)
Could Starwisps be pre-positioned to deploy in advance of solar events? Unlike solar sails that require large amounts of surface area for photon pressure, magsails require less to use the solar winds.
Some hold that the Sun is capable of occasional superflares:
https://www.theweathernetwork.com/en/news/science/space/our-sun-is-capable-of-producing-devastating-superflares
New thermal insulation is being looked at, at least:
https://phys.org/news/2026-09-thermal-insulator-outperforms-material-nature.html