Richard Christopher Carrington (26 May 1826 – 27 November 1875) was an English astronomer whose 1859 astronomical observations demonstrated the existence of solar flares as well as suggesting their electrical influence upon the Earth and its aurorae; and whose 1863 records of sunspot observations revealed the differential rotation of the Sun.

Life

Carrington was born at Chelsea, the second son of Richard Carrington, the proprietor of a large brewery at Brentford, and his wife Esther Clarke Aplin. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1844; but, though destined for the church, rather by his father's than by his own desire, his scientific tendencies gradually prevailed, and received a final impulse towards practical astronomy from Professor Challis's lectures on the subject. This change in the purpose of his life was unopposed, and he had the prospect of ample means; so that it was purely with the object of gaining experience that he applied, shortly after taking his degree as thirty-sixth wrangler in 1848,

The geomagnetic solar flare hit the Earth the following days, the main body of which fell over the American continents. In these early days of electrical communication, the telegraph systems was the most affected. Lines all over Europe and North America failed, in some cases giving telegraph operators electric shocks.

Telegraph pylons threw sparks.

Some telegraph operators could continue to send and receive messages despite having disconnected their power supplies. Based on Carrington's observation of the solar storm, this event now bears the name of the Carrington Event, and events of similar magnitude are classified as "Carrington-class" events.

Late life and demise

But the lease by which he held his powers of useful work was unhappily running out. A severe attack of illness in 1865 left his health permanently impaired. In 1869, he married Rosa Ellen Jeffries (1845–75), and, having disposed of the brewery, he retired to Churt, Surrey, where, on the top of an isolated conical hill, 60 feet high, locally known as the Middle Devil's Jump, in a lonely and picturesque spot, he built a new observatory (ib. xxx. 43). Its chief instrument was a large altazimuth on Steinheil's principle, but there are no records of observations made with it. He no longer attended the meetings of the RAS, and his last communication to it, 10 January 1873, was on the subject of a 'double altazimuth' of great size which he had thoughts of erecting (ib. xxxiii. 118).

A deplorable tragedy, however, supervened. On the morning of 17 November 1875 his wife was found dead in her bed, as it seemed, through an overdose of chloral. The event, combined perhaps with the censure on a supposed deficiency of proper nursing precautions conveyed by the verdict of the coroner's jury, tolled heavily on her husband's spirits. He left his house on the day of the inquest, and returned to it after a week's absence, only to find it deserted by his servants. He was seen to enter it on 27 November, but was never again seen alive. After a time some neighbour gave the alarm, the doors were broken open, and his dead body was found extended on a mattress locked into a remote apartment. A poultice of tea-leaves was tied over the left ear, as if for the relief of pain, and a post-mortem examination showed death to have resulted from an effusion of blood on the brain. A verdict of 'sudden death from natural causes' was returned.

Legacy

Carrington's manuscript books of sunspot observations and reductions, with a folio volume of drawings, were purchased after his death by Lord Lindsay (later Earl of Crawford), and presented to the Royal Astronomical Society (ib. xxxvi. 249). To the same body Carrington bequeathed a sum of £2,000.

Work

Even though he did not discover the 11-year sunspot activity cycle, Carrington's observations of sunspot activity after he heard about Heinrich Schwabe's work led to the numbering of the cycles with Carrington's name. For example, the sunspot maximum of 2002 was Carrington Cycle No. 23.

Carrington also determined the elements of the rotation axis of the Sun, based on sunspot motions, and his results remain in use today. Carrington rotation is a system for measuring solar longitude based on his observations of the low-latitude solar rotation rate.

Carrington made the initial observations leading to the establishment of Spörer's law.

Carrington won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) in 1859.

Carrington also won the Lalande Prize of the French Academy of Sciences in 1864, for his Observations of Spots on the Sun from 9 November 1853 to 24 March 1861, Made at Redhill. This award was not reported in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, probably due to Carrington's bitter, acrimonious and public criticism of Cambridge University over the appointment of John Couch Adams, Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry, as the non-observing Director of the Cambridge Observatory. As a measure of displeasure Carrington withdrew Observations from official considerations of the RAS for what would likely have been the book's second gold medal, for the year 1865.

Carrington super flare

right|200px|thumb|Sunspots of 1 September 1859 as sketched by Richard Carrington

On 1 September 1859, Carrington and Richard Hodgson, another English astronomer, independently made the first observations of a solar flare. Because of a simultaneous "crochet" observed in the Kew Observatory magnetometer record by Balfour Stewart and a geomagnetic storm observed the following day, Carrington suspected a solar-terrestrial connection. For this reason, the geomagnetic storm of 1859 is often called the Carrington Event.

Worldwide reports on the effects of the geomagnetic storm of 1859 were compiled and published by Elias Loomis which supported the observations of Carrington and Balfour Stewart.

Selected writings

References

Further reading

  • – Originally published in the July 1960 issue of Sky & Telescope
  • – an obituary
  • Charbonneau, Paul. Richard Christopher Carrington (1826–1875) (short biographical sketch), Groupe d'Astrophysique de l'Université de Montréal (University of Montreal), 27 December 2001.
  • "Carrington's star billing": an article in The Times Literary Supplement by John North, 24 October 2007
  • Extensive history and timeline about Carrington by Astronomer Sten Odenwald
  • R. Carrington @ Astrophysics Data System