Solar storm: NASA captures the moment a sunspot ‘explodes’
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Forecasters at the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), a unit of the US Department of Commerce under NOAA, issued a G2 geomagnetic storm warning yesterday.Solar storms are rated on a scale from G1 to G5 – with one being the weakest and five having the most potential for damage.But even a G1 stomp’s can create issues for billions, as experts expect power grid fluctuations and minor impacts on satellite operations.
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Tesla’s Berlin factory opens – but EU red tape blocks production In a statement SWPC said: “Induced currents/power grid fluctuations can occur.
“High-latitude power systems may experience voltage alarms.
“Spacecraft – satellite orientation irregularities may occur, increased drag on low Earth-orbit satellites is possible.”
Cyber security expert Chris Vickery wrote on Twitter: “Heads-up.Big solar flare observed and headed for Earth.
A solar storm warning has been issued (Image: GETTY)
The NOAA has issued a warning (Image: NOAA) “Trajectory is going to be a direct hit.
Expect low-level geomagnetic disruption.”
He added that the estimated time of impact was between 6am and 6pm yesterday, but the storm struck at around 3:30am on October 12 after being “fashionably late”.
The storm is now still building and is expected to last until 4pm today.
Spaceweather.com reports that when the storm first struck last night, solar wind speed increased by 120 km/s.
And plasma density tripled, while the temperature increased almost 10-fold.
READ MORE: Northern Lights time: The best time to see the aurora borealis in the UK TONIGHT
Solar storms are seen after coronal mass ejections from the Sun (Image: GETTY) Trending But while the storm could cause some disruptions, it also came with a beautiful benefit.
Stunning aurora, which is known to most as the Northern Lights, was put on display across the world.
The Sun is the primary cause of space weather.
At times, the Sun can be thought of as going through a “stormy” period where its surface is more active than normal.
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Many will be able to see enhanced auroras today (Image: GETTY) When this happens, it can send streams of energised particles out in all directions, which can be observed through the Northern Lights and the Southern Lights.
While these solar events can help illuminate the sky with stunning aurora, they can also do considerable harm to electronics, electrical grids, and satellite and radio communications.
It comes less than a month after scientists warned that a solar storm has the potential to unleash a devastating “Internet apocalypse”.
According to Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi, a Professor of Computer Science and the study’s author, even a few minutes of a global Internet outage would be catastrophic.
And in a worst-case scenario, the outage could last for days or even months.
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Tesla’s Berlin factory opens – but EU red tape blocks production In her paper, titled Solar Superstorms: Planning for an Internet Apocalypse, Professor Quote: : “The Internet has played a key role in helping us deal with the coronavirus pandemic, a recent black swan event.
“However, Internet researchers and operators are mostly blind to another black swan event that poses a direct threat to Internet infrastructure.
“In this paper, we investigate the impact of solar superstorms that can potentially cause large-scale Internet outages covering the entire globe and lasting several months.
Major solar storms have lashed the planet in the past but these occurred before the advent of the Internet, satellite technology and high-speed communications.
The biggest solar storm on record occurred in 1859 and is known as the Carrington Event.
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