Earth to be blasted by solar storm that could take out power grids today
When most folks think of Autumn, browning leaves, crisp wind and pumpkins come to mind – for scientists, though, it’s solar storms.
And one is likely to blitz the Earth today, according to meteorologists.
A solar storm, also called a geomagnetic storm, sees material spewed from the sun bombard the planet’s magnetic field.
The outburst can interfere with power grids and cause blackouts, as well as fry satellites and interfere with GPS communications. Astronauts bopping around the Earth are also subjected to more radiation.
The solar plasma hurtling towards the Earth should slam into us at about 5pm – just in time for rush hour.
While it’s not the strongest blob of sun stuff in the world and will only glance off the planet’s protective magnetic bubble, because the autumn equinox happened on Sunday, there’s a higher chance a geomagnetic storm will erupt.
Solar storms also have a chance of lighting up the night sky with the northern lights. This was why even the UK saw aurora borealis in May, though sadly, AuroraWatch UK isn’t forecasting we’ll see these pale green and pink hues today.
The G1 solar storm began to brew after a sunspot- dark, cooler regions on the solar surface – flared Sunday. Such an eruption is known as a coronal mass ejection and sees about a billion tons of plasma ejected.
Sunspot AR3835 has appeared to calm down in the days since it began flinging sun goo all over the place. The M-class solar flare sent a wave of solar plasma at us at 650,000 miles per hour which will strike today, which took scientists by surprise not only by its intensity but the fact it happened at all.
Right now, the sun lighting the sky above you is whipping up solar winds of 490km/s. According to the Met Office, all this unrest suggests a minor geomagnetic storm is ‘likely’.
The US NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center says the solar storm will be ‘minor’, or a G1 in its rating system. So not quite the apocalypse just yet but may interfere with infrastructure at high latitudes, such as phone towers and satellites.
The agency expects a Geomagnetic K-index of five – anything above seven is severe.
But in the world of space, timing is everything. The storm would coincide with Earth’s autumnal equinox when geomagnetic storms are more likely.
This is the Russell-McPherron effect. Most of the time as the Earth loops around the sun, our planet’s magnetosphere and the Sun’s aren’t aligned, so this invisible barrier around us deflects the star’s particles.
But during the spring and autumn equinoxes, the Earth’s poles tilt in a way that the globe’s magnetic field aligns with the sun.
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