The 1859 Carrington Event, Then and Now

[theartist]

The focus of the LASCO C2 Coronagraph is on the left, to see what the conditions are coming around the east limb.

There is a theory for the evolution of a 'stealthy CME' during solar minimum put forth in the thread titled,  Evolution of a "Stealthy CME".  The idea of that theory is that a location previously putting out strong solar wind then stops, rather abruptly (due to 'disturbance' or whatever) and the pressure of the wind gets trapped by coronal loop magnetic fields, before it eventually releases in a dynamic fashion.

Edited September 1, 2019 by theartist

[theartist]

Presumably, such a 'stealthy CME' as described, even if directed toward earth, would have much less geomagnetic disturbance and consequences than the 1859 event that was associated with a large flare near the peak of solar activity in SC10.

Edited September 1, 2019 by theartist

[DsPallasVI]

Today 150 years ago!!
Glad to see you're paying attention to this amazing event!
Were it to happen today, it would probably set the whole of our societies back 150 years... if not more...
https://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2008/06may_carringtonflare/

[theartist]

Welcome to the forum. It was 160 years ago, but maybe you were just testing us.😊

I think the next time an inner-solar-system conjunction sets up similarly is in 2025, per the figure below:

It is has less similarity to the 1859 set-up than our current situation, but is projected to occur during the SC25 solar maximum period.