Experts are predicting a 60 per cent chance of radio blackouts today after the sun unleashed an extremely powerful solar flare and sent it careening towards Earth.
Minor to moderate outages could last through Thursday, with the possibility of a “strong” outage affecting low-frequency navigation signals and causing a loss of radio contact, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Solar flares are bursts of electromagnetic radiation that explode from sunspots or dark areas of the sun’s surface caused by strong magnetic fields.
When solar flares erupt, they send radiation away from the sun’s surface at the speed of light. If that radiation hits Earth, it can disrupt the ionosphere, or the upper layer of the atmosphere that supports radio communications.
This most recent flare was class X, the most intense. It emerged from the sun’s surface on Sunday and has already caused shortwave radio blackouts in southern Africa.
This next burst of plasma and solar radiation could also bring the northern lights to parts of northern Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota, although the chances are low.
Areas in northeastern Washington, northern Idaho, northeastern South Dakota, northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan could also see them, but it’s even more unlikely in these locations.
The northern lights, also known as the aurora, occur when charged particles from the sun interact with the Earth’s magnetic field, decorating the night sky with vibrant curtains of green, pink, red, yellow, blue and violet.
Experts predict a 60 percent chance of radio blackouts today after the sun unleashed an extremely powerful solar flare and sent it careening toward Earth (STOCK)
The X-class solar flare erupted from the sun’s surface on Sunday and peaked around 4:06 a.m. ET.
It was accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME), or a huge bubble of solar plasma and radiation gushing out of the solar corona.
The CME may bounce off Earth’s magnetosphere, the region around our planet dominated by its electromagnetic field, but only mild impacts are expected, according to space weather physicist Tamitha Skov.
‘Despite a magnificent X2.2 flare today, the sun continues to have poor aim. The launched solar storm will skim the Earth to the west,” Skov wrote in an X post on Sunday.
“Unfortunately, the fast approaching solar wind currents could deflect the structure even further to the west. Expect only minor impacts by midday on December 11.’
Scientists are still analyzing the CME to better understand its trajectory and potential impact.
Meanwhile, the solar flare is expected to continue causing radio blackouts this week.
When a flare is strong enough, it emits extreme levels of X-rays and ultraviolet radiation that ionizes (or charges) the lower layers of the ionosphere.
Minor to moderate outages could last until Thursday, with the possibility of a “hard” disruption of low-frequency navigation signals and resulting in a loss of radio contact.
This next burst of plasma and solar radiation could also bring the Northern Lights to parts of the northern US, although the chances of visibility are low.
According to NASA, this can cause high-frequency radio signals to degrade or be absorbed entirely, causing a radio blackout.
“Users of high-frequency (HF) radio signals may experience temporary degradation or complete loss of signal across much of the sunny side of Earth,” NOAA said Sunday.
Solar flares are classified into groups of letters according to their size, with X being the most powerful, followed by M, C and the weakest, B.
Within each class, a numerical scale ranging from one to nine provides more details on the intensity of the flare. Sunday’s flare was X2.2.
Only the X and M flares are strong enough to affect Earth and cause communications disruptions.
The sun is currently at its solar maximum, or the peak of its 11-year cycle characterized by increased solar activity.
That means events like solar flares and CMEs are especially common right now.
On October 15, NASA, NOAA and The Solar Cycle Prediction Panel confirmed that the sun has reached its solar maximum period, which could continue into the next year.
That means there are likely many more powerful flares, CMEs, and other solar events to come.