Since the Northern lights visited this month it seems we now have a daily weather alert about solar flares or increased aurora activity. None quite panned out, though. The massive consecutive solar flares hit us during the day, or made stunning displays just for the Yukon.
(I know I’m being greedy. I’ve already had more Northern Lights than I deserve.)
It made me research The Carrington Event, an episode in the 1800s in which there was a strong solar flare that hit Earth very fast and caused auroras visible even near the equator. The effects lasted two days, and this is the cool thing: it blew up the batteries the telegraph stations needed to do their job, until two station employees realized they didn’t need batteries to make an electrical current down the wires, the geomagnetic storm gave them all the power they needed.
I find knowledge like this very comforting. When the sun eventually hits us with a devastating flare that wipes out all computers, I will be the one who knows how to a) make cheese, b) weave a basket, and c) send the telegrams.
2 responses to “TWIL: How to send a telegraph by way of the Northern lights”
Unfortunately I think most of the telegraph apparatus is no longer extant. That is really neat, though, that the magnetic storm provided enough energy!!!
(do you know morse?)
Cheese is definitely useful, though, if you can connect with some cows!
KC – the only Morse I know is the letter V, of course, because of Beethoven and WWII and the BBC.