A geomagnetic storm, caused by a series of solar flares and which could be the most severe since 2005, will reach Earth this Friday, May 10 at dusk, according to the National Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA, in English).
“We have a very, very rare event ahead of us,” Shawn Dahl, coordinator at the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in Boulder, Colorado, said at a news conference.
Solar winds moving directly toward Earth at almost 800 kilometers per second will reach the planet around 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time (24:00 GMT)
“We have notified operators of critical infrastructure, including communications, satellites and electric power plants,” the official added.
SWPC has also alerted the Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), but does not expect “a catastrophic passive collapse.”
First G4 (Severe) geomagnetic since 2005 has been issued.
The aurora tonight (5/10) /tomorrow morning (5/11) may become visible over much of the northern half of the country, & possibly as far south as Alabama to northern California. https://t.co/upPlNYuNev@NWSSWPC @NWS pic.twitter.com/JTHmXtRKOc
— NOAA (@NOAA) May 10, 2024
Geomagnetic storms, the spokesperson explained, can impact Earth’s orbital infrastructure and the Earth’s surface with the potential to interfere with communications, the electrical power grid, navigation, and radio and satellite operations.
The series of eruptions began on May 8 and conditions for the storm to persist could last all weekend.
“A large sunspot has produced moderate to very strong eruptions since Wednesday,” the agency said. “At least five of those eruptions were associated with mass ejections from the solar corona that appear directed toward Earth.”
These ejecta are explosions of plasma and magnetic fields in the solar corona that cause geomagnetic storms when they occur towards Earth, NOAA explained.
The great sunspot has launched an astonishing sequence of five solar mass ejections towards Earth, according to the Spacewather.com platform, which estimates that, if it were a hurricane, it would be a category 4.
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