Earth hit by ‘severe’ solar storm
Geomagnetic storms can degrade high-frequency communications, disrupt satellites, and cause overloads on the electricity grid
Daily TribuneGeomagnetic storms can degrade high-frequency communications, disrupt satellites, and cause overloads on the electricity grid
This handout photo taken and released by Jacob Anderson shows the northern lights or aurora borealis during a solar storm over the National Monument of Scotland in Edinburgh on May 10, 2024. The most powerful solar storm in more than two decades struck Earth on May 10, triggering spectacular celestial light shows in skies from Tasmania to Britain — and threatening possible disruptions to satellites and power grids as it persists into the weekend.
Photo by Handout / Jacob Anderson / AFP
WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — The Earth was hit Monday by an intense solar storm that could bring the northern lights to night skies further south than normal, a US agency announced.
Conditions of a level-four geomagnetic storm — on a scale of five— were observed Monday from 1500 GMT, according to a specialized center at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
These conditions may persist for several hours, but were not expected to increase further in intensity, NOAA added in a statement.
“A severe geomagnetic storm includes the potential for aurora to be seen faintly as far south as Alabama and northern California,” NOAA said in a statement, referring to US states.
The new solar storm is caused by coronal mass ejections, which are explosions of particles leaving the Sun. When these particles arrive on Earth, they disrupt its magnetic field.
“There are a lot of auroras now... If it lasts until nightfall here, we might be able to see some,” Eric Lagadec, an astrophysicist at the Cote d’Azur Observatory in France, said on X.
On Sunday, US space agency NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick published on X a superb photo of the aurora borealis — or Northern Lights — taken from the International Space Station, where he is currently stationed.
But solar or geomagnetic storms can also trigger undesirable effects.
For example, they can degrade high-frequency communications, disrupt satellites, and cause overloads on the electricity grid. Operators of sensitive infrastructure have been notified to put in place measures to limit these effects, NOAA said.
