A CARRINGTON-CLASS SUNSPOT: Sunspot AR3664 has grown so large, it now rivals the great Carrington sunspot of 1859. To illustrate their similarity, we've added
Carrington's famous sketch (to scale) to a NASA photo of today's sun:
Sprawling almost 200,000 km from end to end, AR3664 is 15 times wider than Earth. You can see it through ordinary eclipse glasses with no magnification at all. Moreover, it is easy to
project an image of this sunspot onto the sidewalk or a white screen just as Carrington did in the 19th century.
Carrington's sunspot is famous because in August and Sept. 1859 it emitted a series of intense solar flares and CMEs. The resulting geomagnetic storms set fire to telegraph offices and sparked auroras from Cuba to Hawaii. The "
Carrington Event" has since become a touchstone of space weather in pop culture, with recent headlines stoking fears of an "
internet apocalypse" if it repeats.
Indeed, it could repeat.
Studies suggest that Carrington-class storms occur once every 40 to 60 years, so we're overdue. CMEs currently en route to Earth
will not cause a new Carrington Event; they are puny compared to the CMEs of 1859. Nevertheless, it would be wise to keep an eye on this growing active region while Earth is in its strike zone.
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