At least eight solar flares have fired towards Earth – and more could follow – after a crackling sunspot appeared on the solar surface this week.
Our star has seen increased activity in 2022, having unleashed its most powerful solar flare for five years in April.
It appears to be entering a particularly active period of its 11-year activity cycle, which began in 2019 and is expected to peak in 2025.
One of the latest solar flares caused a brief radio blackout over the Atlantic Ocean when it hit Earth at 2:42 p.m. GMT (09:42 a.m. ET) yesterday (Wednesday), according to SpaceWeather.com.
Solar burps: At least eight solar flares have erupted toward Earth — and more could follow — after a crackling sunspot appeared on the solar surface this week. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft captured this photo of an erupting solar flare yesterday
Solar flares – bursts of electromagnetic radiation that travel at the speed of light – normally reach our planet within eight minutes of emerging from the sun’s atmosphere.
The most powerful class are the X-class flares, followed by the M-class, which is what most of the new ones are.
Such was the excitement of Wednesday’s activity that some pundits took to Twitter.
“THREE MORE M LIGHTS: an M6, an M3 and an M2, all from AR3165,” said solar physicist Keith Strong.
‘That’s 8 million flares so far today. They seem to be getting bigger, is an X rocket in sight? Stay tuned.’
The AR3165 Mr Strong tweeted about is a sunspot – a dark region of the sun where it’s cooler than other parts of the surface – that recently emerged on our star’s visible disk.
Solar flares originate near these dark areas of the star, releasing energy.
They are sometimes associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which tend to further disrupt technology on Earth, but so far there is no evidence that this new activity includes CMEs.
These mass ejections tend to be much slower than solar flares because they move more material, but they only impact our planet when pointed in its direction.
CMEs can be triggered when a storm on the surface of the sun causes a vortex to form at the base of plasma loops projecting from the surface.
These loops are called prominences and when they become unstable they can rupture, releasing the CME into space.
Flares and CMEs also have different effects on Earth. The energy from an eruption can disrupt the area of the atmosphere that radio waves pass through, which can cause temporary outages in navigation and communication signals.
On the other hand, CMEs have the power to jostle the Earth’s magnetic fields, creating currents that drive particles towards the Earth’s poles.
When these react with oxygen and nitrogen, they help create the Northern Lights, also known as the Northern and Southern Lights.
One of the latest solar flares caused a brief radio blackout over the Atlantic Ocean when it hit Earth at 2:42 p.m. GMT (9:42 a.m. ET) yesterday (Wednesday), according to SpaceWeather.com
AR3165 is a sunspot – a dark region of the sun where it is cooler than other parts of the surface – that recently emerged on our star’s visible disk. Solar flares come from these dark areas of the star, releasing energy
Solar flares – bursts of electromagnetic radiation that travel at the speed of light – normally reach our planet within eight minutes of emerging from the sun’s atmosphere. Pictured is an image taken by the Solar Orbiter probe
Additionally, magnetic shifts can affect a variety of human technologies, causing GPS coordinates to drift by a few meters and overloading power grids when power companies are unprepared.
There has been no extreme CME or solar flare in the modern world – the last was the Carrington event in 1859 – creating a geomagnetic storm with aurora appearing around the world, as well as fires at stations telegraphs.
The April eruption – the strongest of this solar cycle – caused no damage to Earth, nor affected our satellites and the power grid.
But scientists fear that increased activity from the sun could lead to potentially dangerous solar weather that could damage power grids, knock out satellites and harm astronauts and space equipment on the International Space Station.
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SOLAR STORMS PRESENT A NECID DANGER TO ASTRONAUTS AND CAN DAMAGE SATELLITES
solar stormsor solar activity, can be divided into four main components that can have impacts on Earth:
- solar flares: A large explosion in the atmosphere of the sun. These flares are made up of photons that travel directly from the site of the flare. Solar flares only impact the Earth when they occur on the side of the sun facing the Earth.
- Coronal Mass Ejections (CME): Large clouds of plasma and magnetic field shooting out from the sun. These clouds can burst in any direction and then continue in that direction, plowing through the solar wind. These clouds only cause impacts on Earth when directed towards Earth.
- High speed solar wind stream: These come from coronal holes on the sun, which form anywhere on the sun and usually only when closer to the solar equator do the winds hit the earth.
- Solar energy particles: High-energy charged particles thought to be released primarily by shocks formed ahead of coronal mass ejections and solar flares. When a CME cloud passes through the solar wind, solar energetic particles can be produced and because they are charged, they follow the magnetic field lines between the Sun and the Earth. Only charged particles that follow the magnetic field lines that intersect the Earth will have an impact.
Although these may seem dangerous, astronauts are not in immediate danger from these phenomena due to the relatively low orbit of manned missions.
However, they must be concerned about cumulative exposure during spacewalks.
This photo shows the sun’s coronal holes on an X-ray image. The outer solar atmosphere, the corona, is structured by strong magnetic fields which, when closed, can cause the atmosphere to be suddenly and violently released from bubbles or tongues of gas and magnetic fields called mass ejections. coronals.
Damage caused by solar storms
Solar flares can damage satellites and have a huge financial cost.
Charged particles can also threaten airlines by disrupting the Earth’s magnetic field.
Very large eruptions can even create currents in electrical networks and cut off energy supplies.
When coronal mass ejections hit Earth, they cause geomagnetic storms and enhanced aurora borealis.
They can disrupt radio waves, GPS coordinates and overload electrical systems.
A large influx of energy could flow into high voltage power grids and permanently damage transformers.
It could shut down businesses and homes around the world.
