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The Carrington Event, Part I: The Sun is Acting Strange · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Shout out to our super producer,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Casey Pagram. Shout out to our super producer, the one
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: and only Max Williams, and no shout out to you man.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: It's we We both had some weird weekends. Who are
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Do you know what that is? Is that a thing
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: that this is like a military thing? Or is that
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: something that al Pacino says an scent of a woman.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I've always associated it with the military, but that may
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: be due to my upbring, got it. I don't know
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: why I said that just now. It's just for some reason.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: Every time I'm on a show and someone else does
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: the insure, I just always feel compelled to chime in
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: with hua and I never do it. But I decided
• 1:11
  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
• 1:38
  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.
• 6:16
  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
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I think doesn't even make sense, even like Star Wars
• 6:51
  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
• 6:57
  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
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: the right time. If you're a fan of if you're
• 7:56
  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
• 13:13
  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,
• 13:27
  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
• 14:41
  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
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: mind when I hear this, you know, eruption of material
• 14:50
  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,
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: you know, and annihilate us like the meteor in you know, um,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: what's that movie called with Bruce Willis Where the Arma
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Get And that's the one. But it literally is just
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: you know, these electromagnetic pulses that are super powerful, kind
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: of along the lines of a man made version called
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: an e MP that can be deployed to disrupt communications.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: It's like literally like a very powerful electromagnet that can
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: send out these pulses. I think you've seen it in
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: like heist movies, if it was in Ocean's eleven or
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: they use it to like shut down vegas, uh for
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: a brief moment so they can like you know, do
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: their heisty dirty work. But this is essentially the same concept.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: And then these things disrupt electrical fields, um, which is
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: this is where we're gonna get to. But you're right,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: then the technology of the time is a lot more
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: impressive than I would have thought. I mean, it is
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: practically nineteen hundred. And studying of the Sun, you know,
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: obviously has gone back as far as like people looked
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: at the Sun and we're like, what's that. But you
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: have like Copernicus, for example, who studied the Sun in
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: the fifteen hundreds and developed this, you know, heliocentric view
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: of the universe, which obviously was proved to be incorrect.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: We know that the Sun is not in fact the
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: center of of the universe, but it is the Earth.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: I love the idea of helio centric view because it
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: reminds me of some of the anti science movements that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: have arisen at various times in human history, where they'll say, well,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: your science maybe all well and good, but it remains
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: my view that the universe is heliocentric exactly. No, it's
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: totally true. So we've got you're making a great point here.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: We also have to point out that this is something
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of average people would not have been aware of,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: say your average telegraph operator. They probably did not wake
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: up anticipating the extent of just how bad their day
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: would become, and the stuff that Carrington was lucky enough
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: to see was only one of multiple outbursts that the
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: Sun would have over the next several days. M Hm,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: that what a naughty sun. I love the idea of
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: the Sun having out versts, just like you know, pitching
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: a fit, having a tantrum, kicking and screaming. It needs
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: a nap, It really needs a nap. It needs a snack.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: It does. And it's it's always kind of on the sun,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: you know. I mean, I think it's a good point,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: but yeah. And other solar observers, you know, even professional ones,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: had also reported these large numbers of sun spots beginning
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: on August of that year, with a very strong aurora
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: effect being seen at particularly low altitudes beginning at night.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: If we think of an aurora, we usually think of
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: the two, the Northern lights and the southern lights, the
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: Aurora borealis and the Aurora austrialis right, yep. And this
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: suggested that at least one, probably more of these sun
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: spots had created a solar flare and then a subsequent
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: CME that was strong enough to fling plasma and coronal
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: matter towards Earth sometime in the earlier two days, and
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: they know this because the electro magnetic effects of a
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: flare are visible two people on Earth about eight minutes
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: after they occur. But the stuff that actually gets sort
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: of out there, that's the noise of a CME. Oh no,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I had no doubt, Ben. That is absolutely accurate, right,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: because I know a lot of people are gonna say, well,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: how can sound work in a vacuum? Don't don't test
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: the sci fi too much. It is literally and that
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: stuff takes several days to travel those Uh, let's just
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: ballpark at nine million miles d fifty million kilometers between
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: the Sun and the Earth, and those eruptions still as
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: big as they were, and they are big, they pale
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: in comparison to that sept Tember first c m E.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: That's right, um. And as we've been hinting at and teasing,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: the effects of this September one coronal mass ejection or
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: CME were reported just eighteen hours after Carrington saw what
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: he saw. So again, it's absolute crazy, perfect timing that
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: he really did see the very genesis of what would
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: ultimately become a disaster all over the planet. So what
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: this suggests was that the previous solar flares had already
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: begun to clear the space between the Earth and the
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: Sun so that that plasma could travel faster than its
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: usual million miles per hour. So potentially that means that
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: the cime that was experienced on the night of September
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: two was actually released by an earlier unobserved flare, because
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: it appears to be this was like a very busy
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: time for the Sun. The Sun was just having back
• 19:58
  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
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: there was an earlier unobserved flare, because it's tough to
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: highlight just how lucky Carrington was to observe this directly
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: while was happening, or you know, technically eight minutes after
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: it happened for five minutes. Anyhow, no matter what the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: original culprit was, this arriving same caused the kind of
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: geomagnetic storm you would imagine occurring in a Hollywood blockbuster
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: today the storm, yes, yea, the Earth's magnetosphere was shoved aside,
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: like kicked down the stairs basically, and this allowed these
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: charged particles to get into the atmosphere. They combined with
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: gas molecules that's what forms those northern and southern lights,
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: and these lights spread much further than their usual range.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: You could see them in areas that were close to
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the tropics. People could read newspapers at midnight on the street,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and as we said, they some people in animals like
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: started their days too early. But these beautiful lights in
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: the sky were just a backdrop. They were just a
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: nice silver lining to a very dangerous cloud. The distortion
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: of Earth's magnetic field eventually reached a point of collapse,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: and when that collapsing field released terra watts of energy
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: back into Earth. People of the Victorian age were actually
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: quite fortunate. They didn't have a ton of electrical infrastructure,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: so most of this current just kind of dissipated, except
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: for the big communication system of the world at the time,
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the telegraph network. Yeah, the telegraph network, which is, you know,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: a very rudimentary infrastructure of communication, which essentially these poles
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: connected together by wires that are amplified. I imagine, I'm
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: I'm probably doing a very rudimentary job of explaining it.
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: But there are essentially transformers or some kind of electrical boosting,
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: you know, equipment that causes those signals to be relayed
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: from poll to poll. Literally through wires, right, yeah, yeah, exactly.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: This is not a wireless system. And there's a lot
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: of work that has gone into setting up the telegraph system.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: It was a hugely vital piece of of communication technology.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: You would get news, you would send private messages. You
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: could do business much more quickly than you could by
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: say sending a carriage or a messenger pigeon or a
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: or a goal fashioned letter. Also, telegraph operators were aware
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: that their system could be compromised by atmospheric activity like
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: thunderstorms or the northern lights. But this would have been
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: what would would have been referred to as the wire right,
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: sending things by wire um. And I believe at this
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: stage it would have been all through like Morse code,
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: like taps, you know, you'd have like a device with
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: a little button on it that you would tap the
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: message into and then it would be received on the
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: other end where someone would translate it and then deliver
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: it correct. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the thing. The telegraph
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: system did rely on Morse code, which is the telegraph
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: was primarily used from the eighteen forties into the mid
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: twentie century. And the reason Morse code was so useful
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: is because you were coding pulses of electric current through
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: those wires, so you weren't writing anything. You were doing
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: dits and dashes and dots. And it's it's funny because
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: you can learn Morse code pretty easily. There's just a
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: series of log and short pulses that represent numbers or letters.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: But just like when you see somebody transcribing something in
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: a courtroom, watching somebody actually operate a telegraph is amazing.
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: They move so quickly, it's it's insane. I'm just tipping
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: my tipping my podcast hat to anybody who can do
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Morse code at that level of speed. They had known
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: that there would be regional disturbances could affect the system,
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: but no one had ever experienced a disturbance of this magnitude,
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: a global disruption. And we're going to we're gonna pause
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: for a moment here. This is gonna be part one
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: of our episode on the Carrington event. And trust us, folks,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: when we tell you things get even crazier, don't they know,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: Like stuff that I want you to know, level crazy,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: like the part in the show where things get crazy. Yes,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: just so, just so, And we want to thank you
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: for coming with us on this on this bizarre solar
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: storm journey. We also want to think, of course, our
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: superproducers Casey Herb and Max Williams. Not to mention Alex Williams. Yes,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: there is a relation. Who composed our theme. Jonathan Strickland,
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the Quister. You can see him again real soon if
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: if he has anything to say about it. Um and
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: Christopher Hascio is here in Spear and of course are
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: good pals. Eve's Jeff Coat and our own mad solar scientists.
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: If solar science was research, Gabe Lousier, I'm excited for
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: cartoon noal, what about you? You know, I'm always excited
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: for a two parter band. Well, let's hope. Let's hope
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: that all our electronics are still working when we get there.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts for
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows