Richard Carrington

Richard Christopher Carrington (1826–1875) was an English astronomer who established a private observatory at Redhill, Surrey, in 1853 and made groundbreaking observations of sunspots, discovering the Sun's differential rotation and the equatorial acceleration.[1][2] In 1859, he observed the first documented solar flare, which preceded a massive geomagnetic storm known as the Carrington Event, linking solar activity to Earth's aurorae and space weather.[1][5] His health declined in 1865, limiting his later work, and he died at age 49.[2][5]