Observatory records detail powerful 1859 solar storm
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Researchers at Kerala University examined historical magnetic data from the Trivandrum Observatory in India to gain new understanding of the Carrington Event of 1859, a massive geomagnetic storm.
The team, led by R. Jayakrishnan, published their findings in Astrophysics and Space Science. They determined that the storm wasn’t a single event, but followed and preceded weeks of solar activity involving plasma ejections interacting with Earth’s magnetic field.
The study relied on records created by the Trivandrum Observatory’s bifilar magnetometer between 14 August and 15 September 1859. These records travelled to Scotland in the 1870s with John Allan Broun, then director of the observatory, who planned to analyse them but never published his work. After Broun’s death, the Royal Society of London and then the Royal Society of Edinburgh held the records before transferring them to the National Library of Scotland in 2010.
Researchers traced the records’ journey and identified their scientific value, with support from anthropologist Anna Szolucha of Jagiellonian University in Poland. They scanned over 7,000 documents in ten days, creating a dataset that revealed a series of geomagnetic disturbances culminating in the intense event of September 2, 1859. The team believes multiple coronal mass ejections (CMEs) likely weakened Earth’s magnetosphere, making it more vulnerable to the storm, and that the magnetic field took a long time to recover.
The findings could help improve space-weather modelling, satellite safety, and preparation for future extreme events.
