The sun was crackling with sunspot energy, and two sunspots in particular came to life.
NOAA is Upgraded geomagnetic solar storm clock It will change from level 3 (‘moderate’) to level 4 (‘severe’) on Thursday as several solar flares are expected to hurtle toward Earth and merge.
It could decorate northern skies with brilliant auroras, but it could also cause problems with GPS, disrupt satellite communications and cause high-frequency radio blackouts.
“Watches of this caliber are extremely rare,” NOAA said. clock. “This is a rare occurrence.”
This is the first “severe” geomagnetic storm watch issued since January 2005.
combination of sunspots
Over the past 24 hours, two giant sunspots have combined to eject at least two X-class (largest) and several M-class (second largest) solar flares.
Explosive acceleration of charged and superheated plasma. Coronal mass ejection or CMEAccording to NOAA, it travels through space at high speed and expands.
The diameter of the new sunspot is 16 times that of Earth.
Another sunspot also emitted a strong CME this week and remains active.of Most of the five total CMEs will crash into Earth in an instant. NOAA says as early as Friday until noon Sunday.
“These two sunspot groups are magnetically complex and much larger than Earth. Together they are responsible for frequent M-class flares (mild to moderate),” the Space Weather Prediction Center said. states. “RGN 3664 (the combined sunspot region) continues to grow, becoming more magnetically complex and evolving into a larger threat with increased risk of solar flares.”
How flares cause magnetic storms
“A flare is when the sun gets brighter and you see radiation, but it’s like a muzzle flash,” Peter Becker, a professor at George Mason University, explained in a previous interview. “And the cannon fire is a coronal mass ejection (CME), which means you see the flash, but then ejections of coronal mass can occur in random directions in space, but when do they actually come to Earth? And you have about 18 hours, maybe 24 hours, of warning before those particles actually reach the Earth and start disrupting the Earth’s magnetic field.”
NOAA warns that high-frequency radio communications could be disrupted over a wide area for several hours.
Geomagnetic storms can also cause widespread voltage anomalies in power systems, cause false alarms for security equipment, resist low-orbit satellites and prevent them from orienting, and cause ranging errors and loss of lock for GPS systems. may cause.
Residents as far south as Northern California, Oklahoma, Alabama and Virginia were able to see the Northern Lights.
Forecasters estimate that these conditions occur for a total of about 60 days during an 11-year solar cycle.
Since the current solar cycle began in December 2019, scientists have observed only three severe geomagnetic storms, according to NOAA.
“The last severe geomagnetic storm (observed) was on March 23, 2024, and the last extreme geomagnetic storm was the Halloween storm in October 2003,” SWPC said. “That G5 (extreme storm) caused power outages in Sweden and damaged transformers in South Africa.”
X-class solar flares are the largest explosions in the solar system.
According to NASA, the largest X-class flare could produce as much energy as 1 billion atomic bombs.
M-class flares are the second most powerful and can cause small radiation storms that could harm astronauts.
Solar cycle reaches its peak, causing more solar storms
Tree rings and ice cores are evidence of much larger solar superstorms in the past.
In 1859, the Great Carrington event, generally considered the largest solar storm in recent Earth history, blanketed nearly the entire Earth in auroras.
About 14,000 years ago, a solar flare, perhaps hundreds of times more powerful than the Carrington flare, impacted Earth.
NOAA predicts that the current 11-year solar cycle will peak sometime in 2024 or early 2025, and solar activity could remain high for months and even years. is said to be high.
