If a train leaves the station in Exeter, England, headed south toward Newton Abbot five years before the railway line opens, how long until anyone figures out that it didn’t happen? Well, evidently about 155 years. A report on magnetic storms, published in Nature in 1871, described an incident thought to be the earliest recordedContinue reading "Case closed on long-standing space weather mystery"
Detective work by a team of space-weather experts has discovered the truth about a historical event that had been thought to be the first-ever case of technological disruption by geomagnetic activity from the sun, but has now been shown to have taken place seven years later.
From it being too hot or too wet to leaves on the track or cows on the line, there's a fine tradition of what the British public consider to be flimsy excuses for delays on the trains. Yet an 1871 edition of the journal Nature describes a very different event that caused a train departing Exeter, in Devon on the south-west coast of the U.K., to be delayed by 16 minutes: a solar storm that flooded the railway signals' electrical telegraph network with current.
"The Exeter train delay is a fascinating story because it sits right at the point where emerging technologies first began to encounter the realities of the space environment," said Jim Wild, who is a professor of space physics at Lancaster University and also the President of the Royal Astronomical Society, in a statement.
The event has frequently been cited as the first example of a solar storm disrupting technology on Earth, but when a team led by Wild went back through historical records to investigate further, they found that things didn't add up.
The original report in Nature stated that the electrical disturbance occurred at 10:05pm local time on Oct. 18, 1841. However, Wild's team found that particular train line didn't open until 1846.
So, they delved deeper into the history books to figure out the truth.
"Our research has a hint of a detective story — piecing together a wide range of archived records to better understand a historically severe space-weather event," said team-member Mike Hapgood, a space weather expert at RAL Space, which is the UK's National Space Laboratory, in Oxfordshire.
Combining data from railway timetables, old newspapers, plus historic reports of solar observations and the northern lights and digitized geomagnetic data, Wild and Hapgood's team were able to conclude that the most likely date for the train delay was Oct. 18, 1848, which coincided with a strong solar storm that hit Earth.
This revised date knocks it off top spot in the chronological list of such events. The first recorded disruption to electrical technologies is now a disturbance on the Midland railway network, which had lines covering much of the U.K., in March 1847.
"Although this means it is not the earliest recorded space weather impact, it remains one of the first clear examples of solar activity disrupting critical infrastructure," Wild said. "It also demonstrates the value of combining scientific records with contemporary newspaper reports and archival documents when reconstructing historic space weather events."
Solar storms have been playing havoc with electrical technology on Earth since the 1840s. (Image credit: NASA/SDO)
The case reminds us that space weather has been a hazard to technology and modern systems for a long time, and isn't just a recent problem.
"Society has been experiencing the effects of space weather on technology for almost as long as electrical technologies have existed," said Wild.
The most dramatic example is the aforementioned Carrington event of 1859, representing the most significant solar storm on record as it caused telegraph poles to spark and battery power supplies to be disrupted. By this point, telegraph operators had grown used to electrical disturbances associated with auroral activity, but even the Carrington storm shocked them — quite literally in some cases, as extra current ran down the telegraph lines — with its ferocity. Should a similar event occur today, it would cause huge black outs, knock out power grids, disrupt communications and fry satellites.
"While today's space weather [monitoring] capabilities are far more advanced than anything available in the 1800s, the modern technologies we depend on are also much more vulnerable to solar storms," said Hapgood.
The current solar cycle 25 peaked in Oct. 2024 and we are just beginning to come out of an extended period of maximum activity. However, it remains to be seen how the rest of this cycle will play out before reaching solar minimum in about 2030. We've already seen severe geomagnetic storms caused by space weather in May 2024 — will we experience another powerful storm before the decade is out?
Although the famous Carrington Event of 1859 is often described as the first major space weather event to affect technology, earlier incidents did occur. Historical records show that telegraph systems were disrupted by geomagnetic storms as early as the late 1840s.
Mr. Trump called Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, while Mr. Huang was onstage in Los Angeles and criticized calls to slow down and regulate A.I.
Our star and primary energy source that makes life on this planet possible may also be a cosmic cannibal. That's according to new research that suggests the sun may have swallowed a super-Earth planet billions of years ago in its early history. And our star may still be hiding the evidence.
The scientists behind this research think that the fingerprints of this violent consumption of a planet may still exist within the solar interior. Super-Earths are common occupants of other planetary systems, and these findings can explain why the solar system lacks such a world.
"Our new study suggests that a planet several times more massive than Earth may have fallen into the young sun and left a lasting chemical imprint deep inside it," Mutlu Yildiz, of Ege University, Turkey, said in a statement.
Yildiz and colleagues theorize that the sun's act of planetary infanticide may help to explain differences between observations of the sun and what is predicted by models of stellar evolution. This includes the depth of the sun's convection zone and the so-called sound-speed structure just below the convection zone.
It could also explain why the surface of the sun is depleted of the element lithium.
"By modelling the sun's evolution and comparing the results with precise observations of its interior, we find that the ingestion of a super-Earth could help explain long-standing differences between standard solar models and observations, including subtle changes in the sun's internal structure and its depleted lithium abundance," Yildiz said. "We were interested in whether these problems might have a common origin in the early chemical history of the sun."
The researcher explained that young stars like the sun during its infancy are surrounded by vast flattened clouds of gas and dust called protoplanetary discs, where substantial amounts of material can move between the disc and the star.
"Since planets are made of material that is chemically different from the gas in the disc, we wondered whether the early engulfment of a planet could have left a chemical signature inside the young sun," Yildiz said.
What happened to the sun's planetary meal?
Using advanced stellar evolution software, Yildiz and colleagues tested their idea by investigating different ways the sun could have swallowed a planet.
Their results found the best fit for the sun's current characteristics was the cannibalism of a planet between five and ten times the mass of the Earth, a type of planet called a super-Earth. This could explain the strange, unpredicted characteristics of the sun.
We thought planetary engulfment might affect the solar structure but did not expect the calculations to converge on such a specific super-Earth mass range," said Professor Yildiz. "That was one of the most interesting outcomes of the study."
An artist’s impression of a star engulfing a planet. The blue line traces the path of the planet as it spirals toward the star and ultimately collides with it. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI))
The team's research is supported by previous studies that suggests one or more super-Earth planets could have formed with the orbit of Mercury, the closest planet to the sun.
These worlds would have then migrated through the protoplanetary disk surrounding the infant sun before crashing into the star.
But this new study leaves open the possibility that something else, other than this violent collision with the sun, may explain the discrepancies in measurements of the sun's interior and its lithium content. The team's model doesn't need a planet to have been totally engulfed by the sun.
An illustration of a former super-Earth survivor escaping after an encounter with the sun (Image credit: Robert Lea (created with Canva))
Currently, this idea is based on computer modelling and unexplained solar features, but the researchers think that the predicted structural and chemical signature of a planetary engulfment could still exist within our star and could be detected.
"The earlier work proposed that a super-Earth could have formed and migrated into the young sun. Our paper asks whether the sun itself could still carry observable evidence that such an engulfment actually happened, and we believe it could," Yildiz concluded. "The next step is to see if these fingerprints can be independently detected."
Look up at the night sky and it is easy to imagine a few bright worlds hanging in an empty blackness. But what are we really looking at when we say “the Solar System”? It is a family shaped by one star’s gravity, built from the same ancient disk of gas and dust, and still […]
Picture a moonless night, far from any city. Look straight at the point in the sky opposite the Sun — the antisolar point, where the Sun would appear if you could see it through the Earth. There, faintly, you might make out an oval-shaped glow, 8 to 10 degrees across. For scale, that’s roughly the […]
An AI generated video presented bible study on the 3 hours of darkness at Christ’s crucifixion. The idea of a total solar eclipse during that time is an astronomical impossibility. Biblical texts are examined to interpret its true significance and meaning.
The sharpest images ever taken of the Sun’s surface reveal ribbons of solar plasma curling into tight, wave-like vortices near the edge of a sunspot — a pattern never before seen on our star. The experiment behind the discovery was designed to push the technical limits of a new camera system, not hunt for newContinue reading "World’s largest solar telescope reveals the Sun’s hidden texture"
Forecasting a solar storm is a little like watching a wave leave a distant coast and trying to guess when it will reach the beach. Scientists can see a coronal mass ejection (CME) leave the Sun, but its speed and shape can change as it crosses space. By the time it reaches Earth, the warning […]
This image of the sun — the sharpest ever snapped — was captured by the NSF Inouye solar telescope. (Image credit: NSF, NSO, AURA, MPS, Inouye Tel)
Scientists have captured the sharpest image ever of our sun's surface. This view has revealed incredible new details about the inner mechanisms driving stellar activity.
What is it?
An international team of researchers using the U.S. National Science Foundation's Inouye Solar Telescope has captured the highest-resolution view of the sun's surface.
In analyzing observations from this telescope, the team, made up of researchers from the National Solar Observatory, the NSF NCR High Altitude Observatory and the German Max Planck Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, discovered strange patterns on the sun's surface. The whirling patterns, they found, are actually evidence of what's called Kelvin-Helmholtz instability (KHI), or instability that happens when there is a change in velocity of fluids.
Why is it incredible?
This image is groundbreaking. Capturing the highest-resolution view of the sun's surface is a massive accomplishment, and in the time-lapse video above, you can even see the fluid dynamics on the surface of the sun in motion.
But this view is much more than a beautiful, high-resolution image. These observations have revealed swirls on the sun's surface at the edges of the magnetic areas, allowing the team to identify KHI on the sun's surface. This fluid instability has long been suspected on the sun, but these observations are the first time they have ever been directly seen like this.
“We believe that the discovery of Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability in the solar photosphere, backed up by analysis of numerical simulations, is a major step forward in our understanding of the dynamics and evolution of solar and stellar plasma, and will serve as a basis for future discoveries," David Boboltz, the deputy director at the National Solar Observatory, said in a statement.
A paper describing these findings was published recently in the journal Nature.
Millions of people across Europe and North America will witness a solar eclipse on Wednesday, Aug. 12, but the event will vary greatly depending on the location. A narrow corridor stretching from Greenland to northeastern Spain will experience a total solar eclipse, much of Europe will enjoy a deep partial eclipse, and parts of North America will see a smaller partial eclipse.
Want to know what you can expect to see from where you are? Here's an overview of the event from various locations, along with the exact viewing times for the Aug. 12 solar eclipse.
Remember, it's important to wear certified solar eclipse glasses during all partial phases of the eclipse. Totality — when the sun's face is completely blocked by the moon — is the only time it's safe to remove your eclipse glasses. (It’s not too late to order last-minute eclipse glasses if you don’t have a pair on hand.)
If you're in the path of totality
A map of the path of totality (red) for the Aug. 12 solar eclipse. (Image credit: NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio)
If you're fortunate enough to be inside the 180-mile-wide (290 kilometers) path of totality — the path of the dark shadow of the moon — in eastern Greenland, western Iceland or northeastern Spain, you'll experience the moon completely covering the sun for up to 2 minutes, 18 seconds. The sky will darken to twilight, bright stars and planets may appear in the daytime sky, and the sun's spectacular corona (its wispy outer atmosphere) will become visible. Here’s a handy guide to all the gear you’ll need to get the most out of totality.
The closer you are to the centerline of the path, the longer totality will last. But the most important consideration is to stay within the boundaries of the path, because it has a hard edge. Madrid, for example, is barely outside the path and will see a 99.99% partial eclipse — and no totality whatsoever. The partial phases last an hour on each side of totality.
Here's when totality will occur in various locations for the Aug. 12 total solar eclipse:
León, Spain: 8:28 p.m. CEST (1 minute, 45 seconds)
Soria, Spain: 8:29 p.m. CEST (1 minute, 43 seconds)
S'Arenal, Mallorca, Spain: 8:31 p.m. CEST (1 minute, 36 seconds)
If you're in North America
Viewers in North America will see a modest partial eclipse, with the biggest eclipse seen from northern and eastern Canada, Alaska and the northeastern U.S. The farther northeast you are, the deeper the eclipse will appear. Eclipse glasses are essential at every stage of the two-hour event, because there will be no totality. Here are the times of maximum eclipse in various locations:
Iqaluit, Nunavut: 1:24 p.m. EDT (61% eclipse)
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador: 3:00 p.m. NDT (53%)
Fairbanks, Alaska: 8:27 a.m. AKDT (37%)
Anchorage, Alaska: 8:21 a.m. AKDT (28%)
Bangor, Maine: 1:53 p.m. EDT (23%)
Quebec City: 1:46 p.m. EDT (24%)
Montreal: 1:45 p.m. EDT (18%)
Boston: 1:55 p.m. EDT (16%)
New York: 1:54 p.m. EDT (9%)
If you want to watch totality from outside the path, there are many live stream options available, including planned streams from NASA and the European Space Agency.
A deep partial eclipse will be visible in many locations throughout Europe, with a smaller eclipse visible in North America. (Image credit: GAGAN NAYAR via Getty Images)
If you're elsewhere in Europe and North Africa
Most of Europe and far northwestern Africa will see a spectacular deep partial eclipse, with more than 90% of the sun covered in many western cities. Although the eclipse will never become total, it will still be an impressive sight, though solar eclipse glasses will be required throughout the event. Here are the times of maximum eclipse in some major cities:
Madrid: 8:32 p.m. CEST (99.9%)
Barcelona: 8:29 p.m. CEST (99.8%)
Algiers, Algeria: 7:33 p.m. CET (96%)
Nice, France: 8:24 p.m. CEST (95%)
Lisbon, Portugal: 7:36 p.m. WEST (94%)
Dublin, Ireland: 7:10 p.m. BST (94%)
Cardiff, Wales: 7:13 p.m. BST (93%)
Belfast, Northern Ireland: 7:08 p.m. BST (93%)
Paris: 8:17 p.m. CEST (92%)
Tangier, Morocco: 7:40 p.m. WEST (92%)
London: 7:13 p.m. BST (91%)
Edinburgh, Scotland: 7:05 p.m. BST (91% eclipse)
To check exactly what you'll see and when, enter your location on an interactive map of the eclipse, which will give you a schedule for when the eclipse begins, peaks and ends where you are.
Kenny still appreciated a good church service and even did readings from the breviary. Unusually, he argued there was no reason why an agnostic shouldn't pray.
Astronomers using the 4-m Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii have detected tiny plasma vortices on the Sun’s surface (photosphere) for the first time, revealing a long-suspected process that could transport energy into the million-degree corona.
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