\n Incredibly bright auroras, typically seen in northern climes such as Norway and Alaska, danced across the sky as far south as Panama.\n <\/p>\n
\n The event remains the most intense geomagnetic storm \u2014 a major disturbance of Earth\u2019s magnetic field due to solar activity \u2014 ever recorded.\n <\/p>\n
\n At the time, the effects of solar activity on Earth, called space weather, were not known.\n <\/p>\n
\n Carrington had observed a large solar flare erupt from the sun the day before \u2014 the first solar flare ever witnessed and recorded. He spotted the bright flare while using a telescope to project the sun\u2019s image onto a screen.\n <\/p>\n
\n Although colleague Richard Hodgson also observed the flare, Carrington made what is considered the first direct link between solar and geomagnetic activity \u2014 the flare and the ensuing storm that arrived on Earth 17 hours later, said Mark Miesch, a research scientist at NOAA\u2019s Space Weather Prediction Center.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThat link later gave birth to the science of space weather,\u201d Miesch said. \u201cRichard Carrington witnessed the awesome power of the sun like nobody else before or since.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Despite his major contributions to solar physics, Carrington is not well-known, and researchers suspect that\u2019s partly because there hasn\u2019t been a face to go with his name.\n <\/p>\n
\n Now, the detective work of Kate Bond, an assistant archivist at the Royal Astronomical Society in London, has uncovered the first and perhaps only known photograph of Carrington 150 years after his death.\n <\/p>\n
\n The Royal Astronomical Society archives contain Carrington\u2019s original observations of sunspots from 1853 to 1861, which are some of the most requested for viewing because they contain his drawing of the 1859 solar flare.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Carrington's](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/screenshot2025-02-26-094452-20260211172223316.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n But researchers wanting to see a photo of Carrington have been out of luck because none was on record, Bond said.\n <\/p>\n
\n Bond became interested in Carrington after reading Stuart Clark\u2019s \u201cThe Sun Kings.\u201d In the book, Clark mentions that he wished he could see a portrait of Carrington. A 2021 research paper<\/a> authored by Royal Astronomical Society fellows also mentioned the hunt for the astronomer\u2019s picture.\n <\/p>\n \n Even online searches didn\u2019t turn up a likeness \u2014 except for an erroneous photo belonging to British mathematician Lord Kelvin taken around 1900, more than two decades after Carrington\u2019s death.\n <\/p>\n \n Bond and Hisashi Hayakawa, assistant professor at Nagoya University\u2019s Institute for Space-Earth Environmental Research in Japan, discussed what a lost Carrington portrait might look like during Hayakawa\u2019s visit to the society\u2019s library for separate research in June.\n <\/p>\n \n Like other scientists at the time, Carrington was a member of the Literary and Scientific Portrait Club, Bond said. And all members were required to have a portrait taken at the Maull & Polyblank studio in London. The club operated between 1854 and 1865 when photography was in its infancy.\n <\/p>\n \n The National Portrait Gallery has a list of club members, which includes Carrington\u2019s name as well as his title from 1857 to 1862 \u2014 secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society, Bond said.\n <\/p>\n \n The 2021 research paper also referenced an invitation letter sent to George Airy, the Astronomer Royal, to join the portrait club. Ten club members who had already had their photos taken signed the letter, including Carrington.\n <\/p>\n \n However, exhaustive searches across museums and archives, including the UK\u2019s National Portrait Gallery and the Royal Society, as well as the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and an impressive collection of Maull & Polyblank photos at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, turned up nothing.\n <\/p>\n \n During her conversation with Hayakawa, Bond decided to look up the frequency of sales of Maull & Polyblank photos or albums on auction sites. As a joke, she turned to eBay.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cUp popped a photographic shop in the USA selling a group of these photographs and one of them had \u2018the late Carrington\u2019 written on it in pencil on the mount,\u201d Bond said in a statement. \u201cThe seller simply listed it as \u2018Photo of Mr Carrington\u2019, but with no biographical detail. I couldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Staring back at her was the photo of a young man, about 30 years old \u2014 the age Carrington would have been in 1856 when the portrait was taken. Next to the mention of Carrington on the photo were the letters FRS, short for Fellow of the Royal Society.\n <\/p>\n \n The photo also matched the dimensions of all other photos associated with the portrait club.\n <\/p>\n \n After ruminating all afternoon, Bond bought the photo that night, worried the opportunity might slip away.\n <\/p>\n \n The seller, Bruce Klein, had purchased an album of Maull & Polyblank photos from an auction in the early 2000s while searching for a specific photograph for his collection and decided to put the rest up for sale.\n <\/p>\n \n But more detective work was needed to confirm that it was indeed Carrington in the photo. The inscription of \u201cthe late Carrington\u201d was concerning because it was written after his death in 1875, which means anyone could have added it, even if they didn\u2019t know what the astronomer looked like.\n <\/p>\n \n When the photo arrived, Bond spied what she calls the smoking gun, something that wasn\u2019t visible online.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cWhen I had the photograph in my hands, I could see some very faint writing on the image itself,\u201d she said in a statement. \u201cI couldn\u2019t read it: it was completely unintelligible. When we put it on a light box it became clearer, but it was back to front.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Bond took the photo to the John Rylands Library\u2019s photographic department in Manchester, England, to ask if the writing was an inscription on the back of the print, or if it was smudged writing from a letter that had imprinted onto the photo.\n <\/p>\n \n The experts at the library concluded that it was an inscription on the back of the print that had been made before it was mounted.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThis matters because it says: \u2018R C Carrington, Esquire for C V Walker, Esquire,\u2019\u201d Bond said.\n <\/p>\n \n Charles Vincent Walker nominated Carrington to be a Fellow of the Royal Society, and the two were friends who attended Royal Astronomical Society Dining Club events together. Walker was also a member of the Photographic Club, and the inscription suggests that he owned the photo at some point.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe mistake of the photographer\u2019s assistant in writing on the back of the print \u2014 damaging what would have been an expensive photograph \u2014 made identification possible,\u201d Bond said.\n <\/p>\n \n Now, Walker\u2019s keepsake of his friend has been added to the Royal Astronomical Society\u2019s archives<\/a>. And Carrington\u2019s photo already appears on his Wikipedia entry.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt is fitting that his photograph should also belong to the society \u2014 it feels like he is coming home,\u201d Bond said. \u201cThe odds of this happening I cannot tell. I don\u2019t know how many copies of this print exist. This could be the only one, but there is the possibility that there are others out there.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Over a nine-year period, Carrington made major discoveries about the sun \u2014 but the case of his missing image was unique among the most distinguished solar scientists of the last 400 years, said Dr. Ed Cliver, lead author of the 2021 paper and emeritus astronomer for the National Solar Observatory in Boulder, Colorado.\n <\/p>\n \n Carrington was awarded a Royal Astronomical Society Gold Medal in 1859 for his catalog of circumpolar stars, or stars that never seem to dip below the horizon from certain viewpoints on Earth.\n <\/p>\n \n In 1857, Carrington presented Heinrich Schwabe with a gold medal for his discovery of the sun\u2019s Schwabe Cycle of sunspots \u2014 otherwise known as the solar cycle<\/a>. The sun goes through an 11-year period of waxing and waning activity, which corresponds with sunspots and solar flares that occur on the sun\u2019s surface.\n <\/p>\n \n But Carrington noticed that sunspots near the solar equator spin faster than those at higher latitudes, Miesch said. His observations were the first to suggest that the sun is more fluid than solid \u2014 specifically, plasma \u2014 with global currents that carry sunspots at different speeds based on latitude.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cCarrington not only witnessed the awesome power of the sun; he saw deep into its very nature,\u201d Miesch wrote in an email. \u201cThis image of Carrington, so delightfully acquired, shows the intensity of a scientist but there is boyish wonder there too. It reminds us that science is, and has always been, an intimately human endeavor.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n And then there\u2019s the event that bears his name. Solar storms such the Carrington Event happen about every 500 years, while those with half the intensity occur about every 50 years, according to NOAA<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Lyndsay Fletcher, one of the authors of the 2021 paper and a professor of astrophysics at Scotland\u2019s University of Glasgow, called Bond\u2019s discovery of the portrait an amazing stroke of luck and detective work.\n <\/p>\n \n For years, Fletcher has studied the sun\u2019s so-called white-light flares that Carrington discovered.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cI expect that Carrington would be astonished to know that 167 years later we still don\u2019t fully understand their cause,\u201d Fletcher said. \u201cHis paper about the observation is wonderfully written, with a lot of his personality coming through, and so it is quite something to now see the face of the dedicated and skillful scientist responsible.\u201d\n <\/p>\n![\"Placed](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/carrington-3-reverse-lightbox.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Auroras](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2024-05-11t000000z-621818577-rc26o7apbdbv-rtrmadp-3-canada-weather-aurora.jpg\")
<\/p>\n