NASA Solar Observatory captures solar flares in October
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Space weather physicist Dr Tamitha Skov’s forecast pointed out that a massive coronal hole in the Sun’s core has been rapidly “rotating into the Earth’s strike zone”, warning that there is “big flare potential”. Dr Skov said the fast solar wind coming from the large coronal hole has threatened up to a 45 percent chance of a major storm. She added that there are up to seven sunspot clusters on the Earth-facing disk, including several that are “big flare players”.
And she warned that while one “massive solar storm” is not Earth-directed, we could even get some more big flares that have “blackout risks”.
She added: “Flares are starting to pop again, almost being like little paparazzi bulbs, and that could signify that we could get some bigger flares coming in here soon and cause some radio blackouts for GPS users and amateur radio operators, so stay vigilant.”
Sharing her prediction on Twitter, Dr Skov added: “The new forecasts is up! Learn about the coming Christmas solar storm and it’s impact at Earth by December 24.”
A solar flare is an intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots.
Flares are our solar system’s largest explosive events, and can be spotted as bright areas on the sun and they can last from minutes to hours.
Solar flares impact Earth only when they occur on the side of the sun facing Earth.
Because flares are made of photons, they travel out directly from the flare site, so if we can see the flare, we can be impacted by it.
US Space Weather Center (SWPC) ranks solar storms on a scale of “G1 Minor” to “G5 Extreme”, with the latter being the most dangerous.
While the lowest-ranked storms are not considered intense, even the weakest ones can cause “weak power grid fluctuations” and have a “minor impact on satellite operations”.
But the stronger the storms get, the more potential to cause havoc they bring.
Just a G3-ranked storm can result in surface charging on satellites and “drag may increase on low-Earth-orbit” spacecraft.
While the strongest ones can even cause entire power grids to collapse which could cause power blackouts.
The powerful storms are also a risk for GPS navigation as well as traffic services and satellite-based communications.
The SWPC said: “During storms, the currents in the ionosphere, as well as the energetic particles that precipitate into the ionosphere add energy in the form of heat that can increase the density and distribution of density in the upper atmosphere, causing extra drag on satellites in low-earth orbit.
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“The local heating also creates strong horizontal variations in the ionospheric density that can modify the path of radio signals and create errors in the positioning information provided by GPS.”
But one less threatening feature of solar storms is the possibility of aurora sightings.
Last month, forecasters predicted that a solar storm would bring the aurora borealis, more commonly known as the Northern Lights, to the skies of northern Scotland.
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