Aurora At Bombay!

1. A beautiful aurora.

Aurora, the beautiful display of light that the nature presents! Those who live in high-latitude countries enjoy aurora very often. Those in the tropical regions enjoys the photos and videos of aurora. People living in tropics always wanted to watch an aurora directly, but nature did not show mercy always.

Once during a conference I heard that in the past an aurora had been visible even in Bombay! I could not even believe this news at first. Then I tried to know what had actually happened.

2. Aurora recorded at Colaba in 06-Feb-1872

It was in 1872 February 06 that the following news report appeared in the Times Of India.  "Will it surprise our readers to learn that the Aurora Borealis was plainly visible in Bombay Sunday last? Such was indeed the case and its effects were felt too. After sunset on Sunday, the Aurora was slightly visible, and constantly kept changing colour, becoming deeply violet, when it was intense about 3 o'clock on Monday morning. It was distinctly visible until sunrise on Monday. The influence of this atmospheric disturbance was unpleasant both for our person and our correspondence. The cold was unpleasantly keen, and all telegraphic communication was stopped for some hours.

"Both before and after its height, the aurora affected the working of both sections of the British-Indian Submarine cable, [one] section running east and west and the other North and South. At 8 o'clock yesterday morning the magnetic disturbance in the telegraph offices was very strong. The extent of this disturbance may be gathered from the fact that all the lines to England in connection with the British-Indian submarine cable were affected for hours and so were the Government lines. At Aden, the aurora was brilliant in the extreme." (Courtesy: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2011SW000686/pdf)

3. Aurora Australis, a satellite derived image.
(11 September 2005)

The historic aurora occurred on 04th February 1872. It was reportedly observed in the middle eastern countries too. The aurora was observed by many of the people of Bombay, including NAF Moos who, several years later became the director of the Colaba Observatory. The observations were done manually during that time and therefore Colaba observatory had a record of the magnitude of the storm happened then. Many observatories world wide could not record the event since the recording pens crossed the limits of the paper on which the geomagnetic values were recorded automatically!

Another event, a stronger one also happened in the year when Moos was born, 1859. This storm was first observed, recorded and studied by Richard C. Carrington, and therefor called as Carrington storm. Several such strong events of magnetic storms continues to happen. But not much about that is known except the magnetic record in Bombay taken then.

Such events are not to be recorded only in a magnetogram. The experience should have written well with documentary proof. The Indian Institute of Geomagnetism should move towards recording and preserving its history since it is one of the oldest scientific organization in India.

History of science has a lot of charm in it, that most of the Indian scientists don't appreciate. I believe that there should be some serious efforts towards recording the history of the pursuit of science that will amaze the generations to come.

Note: This article need to be updated later. If any one have something interesting related to it, please share that with me.

Reference:
wikipedia
agu
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/
http://www.solarstorms.org/SRefStorms.html
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/TE041i004p00397/abstract