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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome

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Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always

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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Shout out to our super producer,

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Speaker 1: Casey Pagram. Shout out to our super producer, the one

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Speaker 1: and only Max Williams, and no shout out to you man.

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Speaker 1: It's we We both had some weird weekends. Who are

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Speaker 1: Do you know what that is? Is that a thing

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Speaker 1: that this is like a military thing? Or is that

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Speaker 1: something that al Pacino says an scent of a woman.

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Speaker 1: I've always associated it with the military, but that may

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Speaker 1: be due to my upbring, got it. I don't know

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Speaker 1: why I said that just now. It's just for some reason.

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Speaker 1: Every time I'm on a show and someone else does

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Speaker 1: the insure, I just always feel compelled to chime in

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Speaker 1: with hua and I never do it. But I decided

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Speaker 1: to do it today. Decided to indulge myself this time.

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Speaker 1: I'm noll. By the way, we're not talking about the

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Speaker 1: military today. Well, I mean it might enters in. We're

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Speaker 1: gonna talk about military communications and that kind of technology,

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Speaker 1: but we're talking about natural phenomena, something kind of in

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Speaker 1: the realm of things. We might discuss on another show

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Speaker 1: we do stuff they don't want you to know. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and if you were to ask me, hey, Ben Bolan,

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Speaker 1: since I haven't introduced myself yet, what's the deal with

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Speaker 1: the sun? Well, I would say it depends upon your perspective.

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Speaker 1: The Sun is both the giver of life to everything,

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Speaker 1: from us doing the show you're listening today and the

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Speaker 1: dog who is apparently a big fan of ours barking

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Speaker 1: in the background. But the Sun is also a source

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Speaker 1: of great potential danger. We know that at some point

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Speaker 1: the Sun will consume this planet, but it's a it's

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Speaker 1: a long way away, hopefully. The problem is that the

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Speaker 1: Sun is not content like some lovecrafty and monster to

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Speaker 1: just slumber away until the end of days. No, the

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Speaker 1: Sun is alive in its own way. It's very active

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Speaker 1: and as you said, Nol on our other shows, stuff

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Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. We've talked at length

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Speaker 1: about some of the perhaps unexpected dangers that the Sun

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Speaker 1: can pose, everything from you know, some as small as

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Speaker 1: sun burned to a CME or coronal mass ejection. And

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Speaker 1: today's episode is about uh coronal mass ejection, a disaster

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Speaker 1: from the sun. It's something we know today as the

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Speaker 1: Carrington event of eighteen fifty nine. No, you want to

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Speaker 1: set the stage four, man, I sure do. Ben. So,

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Speaker 1: in the morning the wee hours of September one, eighteen

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Speaker 1: fifty nine, a gentleman by the name of Richard Harrington,

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Speaker 1: who you could describe as sort of a hobbyist, an

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Speaker 1: astronomer hobbyist. He noticed and observed and sketched a kind

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Speaker 1: of bizarre looking cluster of sun spots. It was an

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Speaker 1: area in the sky that basically erupted and created this

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Speaker 1: bright flash that generated a ton of energy that you know,

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Speaker 1: came from the Sun, and it creates this magnetic field

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Speaker 1: that is then released and shot billions of tons of

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Speaker 1: sun material, star stuff, I don't know, whatever you want

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Speaker 1: to call it, towards the Earth. Essentially, he looks at

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Speaker 1: all of this and what that is that that he

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Speaker 1: were describing and that he was seeing and describing and

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Speaker 1: his sketches was a solar flare. And then following that

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Speaker 1: solar flare, you get what you described, Ben, something called

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Speaker 1: a coronal mass ejection that actually hit the Earth a

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Speaker 1: mere seventeen hours later and created essentially what you would

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Speaker 1: call a geo magnetic storm of such intensity that it

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Speaker 1: would be felt across the entire planet in multiple ways. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's true. And when we say star stuff here, we're

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Speaker 1: not too far off. We're taking only a tiny bit

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Speaker 1: of stylistic license. See. I mean, your coronal mass ejection

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Speaker 1: can eject billions of tons of what is technically known

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Speaker 1: as coronal material and carry along with it an embedded

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Speaker 1: magnetic field. This is where things get pretty dicey. Later

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Speaker 1: that night, after Carrington has witnessed this, telegraph communications across

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Speaker 1: the planet start to fail. They stutter out, and then

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Speaker 1: they go dark, and people started reporting again all across

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Speaker 1: the world. Sparks flying from telegraph machines. Operators were getting

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Speaker 1: electric shocks, papers were setting on fire, and these auroras,

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Speaker 1: colorful auroras, illuminated the nighttime sky. It looked beautiful, but

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Speaker 1: they were incredibly bright. Birds thought it was daytime. The

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Speaker 1: day birds began their morning chirping. People who went to

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Speaker 1: work in the morning started their daily chores because they

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Speaker 1: thought the sun had come up. It's the opposite of

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Speaker 1: our earlier episode when people thought the day had ended.

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Speaker 1: If you'll you'll remember that one, right, which was probably

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Speaker 1: a volcanic explosion. Oh no, it was probably a forest fire,

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Speaker 1: that's what it was. And some some folks, just like

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Speaker 1: in our forest fire situation, were certain that the end

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Speaker 1: of the world was at hand, and it was Carrington

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Speaker 1: who knew the truth. This would later come to be

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Speaker 1: recognized as a solar flare with the energy of get this,

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Speaker 1: ten billion atomic bombs and that it's insane to hear that, right,

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Speaker 1: But obviously it had time to dissipate, you know, I

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Speaker 1: mean the fact that the Sun is how many miles

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Speaker 1: away in spaces the Sun ben I'm bad at space math.

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Speaker 1: I'm bad at directions in general, but uh, in particular

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Speaker 1: space directions, the Sun is about let's see, we'll use

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Speaker 1: the U S system. It's about ninety four point three

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Speaker 1: four five million miles from Earth. And that distance if

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Speaker 1: you measure things in space terms, if you had a

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Speaker 1: little space ruler, you would call that distance one astronomical

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Speaker 1: unit or a U or fifty thousand parsecs. No, that's

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Speaker 1: not a thing. That's a star Star Wars thing that

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Speaker 1: I think doesn't even make sense, even like Star Wars

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Speaker 1: buffs like say, par sex is not a measure of

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Speaker 1: speed or something like that. I don't know. You Star

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Speaker 1: Wars nerds out there, correct me. Oh, you know what

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Speaker 1: I should point out too, for an aster physicists or

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Speaker 1: astronomers in the crowd, the Sun is currently as we

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Speaker 1: record point three four or five million miles away, but

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Speaker 1: we uh here on Earth, we get closer and further

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Speaker 1: at different times, so the average is something more like thousand,

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Speaker 1: nine hundred fifty five, eight hundred and seven miles totally.

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Speaker 1: So I'm sorry, I got real effer say. My point

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Speaker 1: is ten billion atomic bombs worth of energy dissipating over

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Speaker 1: millions of miles and still having such a massive impact

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Speaker 1: on people's day to day lives all over the world.

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Speaker 1: That really speaks something to the the power of the Sun.

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Speaker 1: It's true, and we also have to consider there's a

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Speaker 1: bit of a lottery here. It's a little bit of

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Speaker 1: gambling because Earth happened to be in the wrong place

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Speaker 1: at the wrong time, or in the right place at

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Speaker 1: the right time. If you're a fan of if you're

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Speaker 1: a fan of solar disasters. The big question, though, comes

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Speaker 1: down to how Richard Carrington figured this out. He was

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Speaker 1: a gentleman of means, he was a man of leisure,

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Speaker 1: and he didn't need to get up every day and

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Speaker 1: slept for his daily bread. Like so many other people

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Speaker 1: during this time. Since he had so much free time,

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Speaker 1: and since he did have the financial means to support

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Speaker 1: his curiosities, he got really into studying what was called

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Speaker 1: natural philosophy, And in natural philosophy he focused on the

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Speaker 1: field of astronomy. He didn't look at the night sky

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Speaker 1: so much, though, the way so many other astronomers did. Instead,

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Speaker 1: he studied the sun, and in his studies he would

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Speaker 1: monitor changes on the solar surface his best he could tell,

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Speaker 1: and he would try to make correlations and predictions based

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Speaker 1: on the previous data he had obtained. And that's why

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Speaker 1: he knew something was up, something was irregular in that

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Speaker 1: early morning on September one. It makes sense, doesn't it beend,

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Speaker 1: given you know, the availability of technology in the late

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Speaker 1: eighteen hundreds, that you would study, like if you're into stars,

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Speaker 1: you would study the closest one to you. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of weird that other people hadn't, at least to

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Speaker 1: this degree. So here's what he did. This is how

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Speaker 1: well off he is. He's got a country estate outside

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Speaker 1: of London, is his state has a private observatory. Because

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Speaker 1: this is the kind of guy who might have had

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Speaker 1: a garden hermit. You know, that's how well off he is.

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Speaker 1: So he has a shutter over his dome and he

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Speaker 1: cranks it open slowly. He looks at the clear blue

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Speaker 1: sky in front of him. He takes his telescope, points

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Speaker 1: it towards the sun to brass telescope, and as he's

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Speaker 1: looking at the sun, he notices this cluster of enormous

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Speaker 1: dark spots that we mentioned earlier. They're kind of like

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Speaker 1: freckles or moles if you have any of those. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it's a dumb question, Ben, but aren't you, like not

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Speaker 1: supposed to look directly into the sun, let alone with

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Speaker 1: the giant magnifying instrument. Yeah, yeah, it's it's not the

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Speaker 1: best move typically to look at the sun with the

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Speaker 1: unaided eye, and it's especially damaging during an eclipse, which

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Speaker 1: is why you need to wear special spectacles. But nonetheless,

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Speaker 1: this was Carrington's bag, and he looked at the sun,

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Speaker 1: and like you said, Ben, he saw these kind of

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Speaker 1: eruptions coming from those clusters that you describe those sun spots.

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Speaker 1: And this is something he did every day, but today

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Speaker 1: was a little bit different. At eleven eighteen am by

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Speaker 1: local time, he could really see change happening in these

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Speaker 1: sun spots that he he was used to kind of

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Speaker 1: observing that moved across the entire face of the sun

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Speaker 1: spot and then gradually faded out and then disappeared. So honestly,

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Speaker 1: the biggest factor in Carrington's fiver was timing. Right. He

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Speaker 1: literally happened to see the event that led to the

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Speaker 1: event right the upper case all caps events that we're

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Speaker 1: going to describe shortly. He immediately thought maybe something was

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Speaker 1: up with his telescope, uh, that something was was damaged

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Speaker 1: or broken. Um. And after you know, taking a look

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Speaker 1: and seeing what was going on with it, he found

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Speaker 1: it to be in perfect working condition. And then realized

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Speaker 1: that he had seen something very special and particularly unusual, right,

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Speaker 1: and being a fledgling scientist, he at least knew that

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Speaker 1: he needed confirmation, So it wasn't just a matter of

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Speaker 1: he said, sun said situation. So he ran out to

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Speaker 1: grab someone possibly in my head his nearby garden. He said,

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Speaker 1: he come look at this telescope. Quickly, look sat on

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Speaker 1: these said on these phone books, and take a look

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Speaker 1: through this telescope and look at oh, yes, scard to hermit,

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Speaker 1: that's a good correction and so he said, yes, my

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Speaker 1: hermits come come from your meditations and staff through my

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Speaker 1: brass telescope for the Sun's misbehaving. But when he got

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Speaker 1: whomever it was there to be a second witness, he

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Speaker 1: felt like a real dunderhead because the spots had already

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Speaker 1: quote much changed and enfeebled. All in all, the thing

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Speaker 1: he saw around eighteen that morning was an event that

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Speaker 1: lasted less than five minutes, but during those five minutes,

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Speaker 1: giga tons, according to Hackaday dot com of charged particles

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Speaker 1: were blasted from the surface of the Sun and they

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Speaker 1: rode the Sun's magnetic flux, so that within about seventeen

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Speaker 1: to eighteen hours they would start hitting planet Earth. And

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Speaker 1: to understand why Carrington was somewhat unique or somewhat distinct

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Speaker 1: and noticing this, we have to talk a little bit

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Speaker 1: about the concept of solar science. If we're being charitable,

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Speaker 1: we can say modern solar sciences in its infancy in

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Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine. And the reason he was able to

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Speaker 1: not damage his eyes is because his telescope was well

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Speaker 1: was crued by today's standards, of course, but it projected

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Speaker 1: an image onto a white card, and that was how

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Speaker 1: he was able to avoid a lot of eye damage.

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Speaker 1: If you look at the Sun through a telescope without protection,

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Speaker 1: now it can damage drive to be very careful. He

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Speaker 1: wasn't the only person studying the Sun. Other astronomers have

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Speaker 1: begun to sort of ferret out its secrets, and they discovered,

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Speaker 1: perhaps most importantly, that the Sun appeared to have a cycle.

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Speaker 1: The number of sun spots in their locations on the

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Speaker 1: Sun's face kind of occurred in a pattern. And then

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Speaker 1: they knew that they also have pieced together this stuff.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like a mystery that they're investigating because

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Speaker 1: they could say, Okay, we know these sun spots seem

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Speaker 1: to happen on this rough cycle, and then we know

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Speaker 1: that when these sun spots occur, we can see stuff

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Speaker 1: happen on Earth. We can see stuff like the Aurora

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Speaker 1: Borealis or the Aurora australis, and we know that there's

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Speaker 1: a clear association between solar activity and the magnetic field

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Speaker 1: that surrounds our planets. And even at this time, this

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Speaker 1: is so fascinating, Even at this time, how impressive is this.

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Speaker 1: Some solar observatories had magnetometers so they could record changes

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Speaker 1: on Earth and then even more closely correlate them to

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Speaker 1: solar activity. That is so cool, and just really quickly

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Speaker 1: just to let's let's talk a little bit about what

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Speaker 1: this coronal mass ejection is again. I picture in my

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Speaker 1: mind when I hear this, you know, eruption of material

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Speaker 1: from the Sun. I picture it more like the Sun

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Speaker 1: is shooting fireballs at Earth and it's going to land,

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Speaker 1: you know, and annihilate us like the meteor in you know, um,

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Speaker 1: what's that movie called with Bruce Willis Where the Arma

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Speaker 1: Get And that's the one. But it literally is just

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Speaker 1: you know, these electromagnetic pulses that are super powerful, kind

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Speaker 1: of along the lines of a man made version called

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Speaker 1: an e MP that can be deployed to disrupt communications.

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Speaker 1: It's like literally like a very powerful electromagnet that can

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Speaker 1: send out these pulses. I think you've seen it in

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Speaker 1: like heist movies, if it was in Ocean's eleven or

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Speaker 1: they use it to like shut down vegas, uh for

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Speaker 1: a brief moment so they can like you know, do

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Speaker 1: their heisty dirty work. But this is essentially the same concept.

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Speaker 1: And then these things disrupt electrical fields, um, which is

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Speaker 1: this is where we're gonna get to. But you're right,

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Speaker 1: then the technology of the time is a lot more

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Speaker 1: impressive than I would have thought. I mean, it is

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Speaker 1: practically nineteen hundred. And studying of the Sun, you know,

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Speaker 1: obviously has gone back as far as like people looked

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Speaker 1: at the Sun and we're like, what's that. But you

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Speaker 1: have like Copernicus, for example, who studied the Sun in

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Speaker 1: the fifteen hundreds and developed this, you know, heliocentric view

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Speaker 1: of the universe, which obviously was proved to be incorrect.

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Speaker 1: We know that the Sun is not in fact the

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Speaker 1: center of of the universe, but it is the Earth.

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Speaker 1: I love the idea of helio centric view because it

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Speaker 1: reminds me of some of the anti science movements that

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Speaker 1: have arisen at various times in human history, where they'll say, well,

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Speaker 1: your science maybe all well and good, but it remains

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Speaker 1: my view that the universe is heliocentric exactly. No, it's

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Speaker 1: totally true. So we've got you're making a great point here.

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Speaker 1: We also have to point out that this is something

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Speaker 1: a lot of average people would not have been aware of,

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Speaker 1: say your average telegraph operator. They probably did not wake

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Speaker 1: up anticipating the extent of just how bad their day

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Speaker 1: would become, and the stuff that Carrington was lucky enough

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Speaker 1: to see was only one of multiple outbursts that the

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Speaker 1: Sun would have over the next several days. M Hm,

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Speaker 1: that what a naughty sun. I love the idea of

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Speaker 1: the Sun having out versts, just like you know, pitching

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Speaker 1: a fit, having a tantrum, kicking and screaming. It needs

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Speaker 1: a nap, It really needs a nap. It needs a snack.

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Speaker 1: It does. And it's it's always kind of on the sun,

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Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I think it's a good point,

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Speaker 1: but yeah. And other solar observers, you know, even professional ones,

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Speaker 1: had also reported these large numbers of sun spots beginning

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Speaker 1: on August of that year, with a very strong aurora

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Speaker 1: effect being seen at particularly low altitudes beginning at night.

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Speaker 1: If we think of an aurora, we usually think of

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Speaker 1: the two, the Northern lights and the southern lights, the

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Speaker 1: Aurora borealis and the Aurora austrialis right, yep. And this

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Speaker 1: suggested that at least one, probably more of these sun

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Speaker 1: spots had created a solar flare and then a subsequent

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Speaker 1: CME that was strong enough to fling plasma and coronal

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Speaker 1: matter towards Earth sometime in the earlier two days, and

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Speaker 1: they know this because the electro magnetic effects of a

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Speaker 1: flare are visible two people on Earth about eight minutes

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Speaker 1: after they occur. But the stuff that actually gets sort

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Speaker 1: of out there, that's the noise of a CME. Oh no,

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Speaker 1: I had no doubt, Ben. That is absolutely accurate, right,

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Speaker 1: because I know a lot of people are gonna say, well,

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Speaker 1: how can sound work in a vacuum? Don't don't test

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Speaker 1: the sci fi too much. It is literally and that

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Speaker 1: stuff takes several days to travel those Uh, let's just

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Speaker 1: ballpark at nine million miles d fifty million kilometers between

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Speaker 1: the Sun and the Earth, and those eruptions still as

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Speaker 1: big as they were, and they are big, they pale

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Speaker 1: in comparison to that sept Tember first c m E.

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Speaker 1: That's right, um. And as we've been hinting at and teasing,

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Speaker 1: the effects of this September one coronal mass ejection or

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Speaker 1: CME were reported just eighteen hours after Carrington saw what

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Speaker 1: he saw. So again, it's absolute crazy, perfect timing that

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Speaker 1: he really did see the very genesis of what would

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Speaker 1: ultimately become a disaster all over the planet. So what

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Speaker 1: this suggests was that the previous solar flares had already

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Speaker 1: begun to clear the space between the Earth and the

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Speaker 1: Sun so that that plasma could travel faster than its

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Speaker 1: usual million miles per hour. So potentially that means that

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Speaker 1: the cime that was experienced on the night of September

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Speaker 1: two was actually released by an earlier unobserved flare, because

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Speaker 1: it appears to be this was like a very busy

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Speaker 1: time for the Sun. The Sun was just having back

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Speaker 1: to back tantrums here. Um, so we start to see

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Speaker 1: the effects. Yes, yeah, again, it is quite possible that

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Speaker 1: there was an earlier unobserved flare, because it's tough to

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Speaker 1: highlight just how lucky Carrington was to observe this directly

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Speaker 1: while was happening, or you know, technically eight minutes after

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Speaker 1: it happened for five minutes. Anyhow, no matter what the

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Speaker 1: original culprit was, this arriving same caused the kind of

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Speaker 1: geomagnetic storm you would imagine occurring in a Hollywood blockbuster

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Speaker 1: today the storm, yes, yea, the Earth's magnetosphere was shoved aside,

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Speaker 1: like kicked down the stairs basically, and this allowed these

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Speaker 1: charged particles to get into the atmosphere. They combined with

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Speaker 1: gas molecules that's what forms those northern and southern lights,

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Speaker 1: and these lights spread much further than their usual range.

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Speaker 1: You could see them in areas that were close to

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Speaker 1: the tropics. People could read newspapers at midnight on the street,

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Speaker 1: and as we said, they some people in animals like

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Speaker 1: started their days too early. But these beautiful lights in

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Speaker 1: the sky were just a backdrop. They were just a

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Speaker 1: nice silver lining to a very dangerous cloud. The distortion

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Speaker 1: of Earth's magnetic field eventually reached a point of collapse,

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Speaker 1: and when that collapsing field released terra watts of energy

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Speaker 1: back into Earth. People of the Victorian age were actually

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Speaker 1: quite fortunate. They didn't have a ton of electrical infrastructure,

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Speaker 1: so most of this current just kind of dissipated, except

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Speaker 1: for the big communication system of the world at the time,

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Speaker 1: the telegraph network. Yeah, the telegraph network, which is, you know,

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Speaker 1: a very rudimentary infrastructure of communication, which essentially these poles

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Speaker 1: connected together by wires that are amplified. I imagine, I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm probably doing a very rudimentary job of explaining it.

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Speaker 1: But there are essentially transformers or some kind of electrical boosting,

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Speaker 1: you know, equipment that causes those signals to be relayed

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Speaker 1: from poll to poll. Literally through wires, right, yeah, yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: This is not a wireless system. And there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of work that has gone into setting up the telegraph system.

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Speaker 1: It was a hugely vital piece of of communication technology.

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Speaker 1: You would get news, you would send private messages. You

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Speaker 1: could do business much more quickly than you could by

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Speaker 1: say sending a carriage or a messenger pigeon or a

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Speaker 1: or a goal fashioned letter. Also, telegraph operators were aware

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Speaker 1: that their system could be compromised by atmospheric activity like

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Speaker 1: thunderstorms or the northern lights. But this would have been

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Speaker 1: what would would have been referred to as the wire right,

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Speaker 1: sending things by wire um. And I believe at this

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Speaker 1: stage it would have been all through like Morse code,

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Speaker 1: like taps, you know, you'd have like a device with

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Speaker 1: a little button on it that you would tap the

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Speaker 1: message into and then it would be received on the

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Speaker 1: other end where someone would translate it and then deliver

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Speaker 1: it correct. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the thing. The telegraph

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Speaker 1: system did rely on Morse code, which is the telegraph

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Speaker 1: was primarily used from the eighteen forties into the mid

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Speaker 1: twentie century. And the reason Morse code was so useful

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Speaker 1: is because you were coding pulses of electric current through

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Speaker 1: those wires, so you weren't writing anything. You were doing

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Speaker 1: dits and dashes and dots. And it's it's funny because

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Speaker 1: you can learn Morse code pretty easily. There's just a

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Speaker 1: series of log and short pulses that represent numbers or letters.

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Speaker 1: But just like when you see somebody transcribing something in

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Speaker 1: a courtroom, watching somebody actually operate a telegraph is amazing.

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Speaker 1: They move so quickly, it's it's insane. I'm just tipping

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Speaker 1: my tipping my podcast hat to anybody who can do

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Speaker 1: Morse code at that level of speed. They had known

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Speaker 1: that there would be regional disturbances could affect the system,

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Speaker 1: but no one had ever experienced a disturbance of this magnitude,

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Speaker 1: a global disruption. And we're going to we're gonna pause

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Speaker 1: for a moment here. This is gonna be part one

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Speaker 1: of our episode on the Carrington event. And trust us, folks,

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Speaker 1: when we tell you things get even crazier, don't they know,

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Speaker 1: Like stuff that I want you to know, level crazy,

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Speaker 1: like the part in the show where things get crazy. Yes,

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Speaker 1: just so, just so, And we want to thank you

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Speaker 1: for coming with us on this on this bizarre solar

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Speaker 1: storm journey. We also want to think, of course, our

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Speaker 1: superproducers Casey Herb and Max Williams. Not to mention Alex Williams. Yes,

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Speaker 1: there is a relation. Who composed our theme. Jonathan Strickland,

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Speaker 1: the Quister. You can see him again real soon if

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Speaker 1: if he has anything to say about it. Um and

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Speaker 1: Christopher Hascio is here in Spear and of course are

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Speaker 1: good pals. Eve's Jeff Coat and our own mad solar scientists.

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Speaker 1: If solar science was research, Gabe Lousier, I'm excited for

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Speaker 1: cartoon noal, what about you? You know, I'm always excited

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Speaker 1: for a two parter band. Well, let's hope. Let's hope

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Speaker 1: that all our electronics are still working when we get there.

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Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for

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Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows