Ultra-fast solar winds that were blasted out of the Sun are darting towards Earth and could come into contact with its geomagnetic field. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned that the G1-class storm could cause power grid failures, disrupt satellites and disrupt the migrations of animals if this happens. While this has the potential to cause disruption, the incoming solar storm is in the lowest ranked category in terms of its intensity, meaning it is considered a minor storm.
Solar storms are ranked from G-1 minor to G-5 extreme, but even the minor storms threaten disruption when they come into contact with satellites.
The NOAA has now warned that the geomagnetic storm is “likely” to strike today as a result of a “gaseous material flowing from a southern hole in the Sun’s atmosphere”.
These coronal holes appear as dark areas in extreme ultraviolet and X-ray images and are regions where the Sun’s plasma is cooler and less dense than that surrounding it because of the star’s magnetic field which extends into space as an open field.
That allows for the rapid streams of solar wind to pour out the Sun and may even reach the Earth if the hole is facing towards the Blue planet.
While the impending G1-class storm is only minor, more intense storms threaten major disruption.
The most extreme storms threaten to severely impact satellite operations, and can spark blackouts power grids and disrupt high-frequency radio communications for days.
While solar storms are frequent events, they normally only occur around four times in every 11-year solar cycle.
When Earth is in the solar cycle, M-class solar flares are also common.
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According to experts at SpaceWeather.com, an M-class flare could be on the way.
They warned: Growing sunspot AR3068 has developed a ‘beta-gamma’ magnetic field that harbours energy for M-class solar flares.
Any explosions today will be geoeffective because the sunspot is almost directly facing Earth.”
But according to the Met Office, these are nothing to worry about.
It explains that “this magnitude of flare is common for the Earth to experience in this part of the Sun’s solar cycle. Any potential impacts would likely be fairly minor and short-lived”.
This is a breaking story. More to follow.