Earth could be hit by another powerful solar storm this week that is expected to cause radio blackouts and incredible displays of the northern lights.
Earlier this month, the Sun unleashed the most powerful plasma streams, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), in 20 years, causing communications disruptions around the world.
The sunspot that caused the chaos spun again and sent a powerful flare toward the Earth region on Monday.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a 60 percent chance of radio blackouts on Tuesday and for the rest of the week.
The sun (pictured) emitted 17 small solar flares on Monday and one large X2.9 flare, which is the largest class classification.
NOAA issued a severe geomagnetic storm warning on May 11 as the same sunspot was crushing our planet with dozens of energized plasma streams.
A solar or geomagnetic storm is a major disturbance of Earth’s magnetosphere, the area around Earth controlled by the planet’s magnetic field.
The NOAA alert was the first issued since 2005, when Earth received the highest dose of radiation in half a century.
The unusual event earlier this month disrupted GPS, power grids, farm equipment and orbiting satellites, and experts are monitoring Monday’s flare in preparation for the same problems.
The sunspot, named AR3664, has emitted 17 flares this week, but the strongest one has captured attention around the world.
“I have not seen an explosion like this in my 40 years of observing the Sun,” said amateur astronomer Michael Karrer of Austria. space weather.
‘So fast, so far in space! It was gigantic,” she said.
Sunspot AR3664 is not currently facing Earth directly, but data shows it will come into view toward the end of the week and could trigger solar storms toward our planet.
While the storms are not expected to reach the levels seen earlier this month, they are expected to cause a level three (R3) radio blackout that can last from minutes to hours and affect GPS systems and radio communications.
GPS systems are affected because the radiation emitted by the solar flare hits the magnetic sphere surrounding the Earth, causing fluctuations in the ionosphere.
The ionosphere is a layer of the upper atmosphere that absorbs and reflects signals during geomagnetic storms, causing static and interruptions in the signals received by GPS systems.
Auroras are also expected to spread across northeastern Canada tonight, although no official forecasts related to the solar storm have been released.
The United States could be affected by loss of cell phone communication, GPS signals and hour-long blackouts as a result of solar flares. Pictured: Filtered image of the sun’s solar flare from Milan, Italy.
The flare first came from the former sunspot region AR3664, the same location as the May 10 storm, the first of its kind in 21 years. Pictured: Active region of the sun that emits solar flares.
The sunspot first spewed solar flares on May 10 before moving away, but its resurgence could mean a powerful geostorm is headed toward Earth.
Earlier this month, a powerful G5 solar storm hit Earth, marking the largest flare in 20 years that was expected to collapse US power grids and cause blackouts across the country.
The storm did not cause significant impacts, although some farmers reported losing access to their GPS systems, forcing them to suspend operations.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that there were no more serious problems because they were prepared.
“Simply put, power grid operators have been busy since yesterday working to maintain adequate and regulated current flow without interruptions,” said Shawn Dahl, NOAA services coordinator. NPR At the time.
Other astronomers captured images of the sun emitting the solar flare around the world over the past two days, from Arizona, Virginia and countries as far away as Italy and Chile.
Scientists have warned that these extreme flares could only be the start of more powerful solar flares that could hit Earth next year, triggering the worst geostorm in 165 years.
In 2019, the Sun did not have any visible sunspots on its surface, but the US National Space Weather Prediction Center It is estimated that there could be up to 115 by July 2025.
Astronomers are concerned that another extreme solar flare could mirror the Carrington event of 1859 that set fire to telegraph cables, disrupted ships’ compasses and cut off communications around the world.
If an event of that magnitude were to occur today, it would have much broader implications due to the modern reliance on technology for daily operations.
This would mean that home medical equipment that requires electricity to operate would be rendered useless, and without cell phones, there would be no way to call 911 in the event of an emergency.
Large geomagnetic storms can also destroy satellites by causing them to collide with other objects in space.
The 2022 geomagnetic storm was the last severe storm before early May, destroying up to 40 Starlink satellites worth more than $50 million.