A giant solar flare that
arced off the sun on Wednesday afternoon is heading for Earth, and
scientists say it could disrupt our planet's power and communication
grids when it crosses our path on Friday and Saturday. It's the largest solar storm in years.
NASA has issued a geomagnetic storm watch,
cautioning that the flare could affect unprepared electrical systems.
Though the flare was classified as an ominous-sounding "X-class" event
(an X1.6, in the high-intensity category), you can relax: NOAA space weather forecaster Bill Murtagh told the media
that though the event is expected to cause "geomagnetic storm levels in
the G2 (moderate) and G3 (strong) range," problems with power grids on
that scale are "typically very manageable." Satellite operators may have
to deal with increased interference.
Still, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said, "This
is a pretty strong solar storm, and we just won't know until it gets
here." NASA released an ominous video of the solar flare, which is both
gorgeous and not exactly reassuring.
Solar flares, the European Space Agency explains,
are formed when "energy stored in 'twisted' magnetic fields (usually
above sunspots) is suddenly released." The resulting flare is
supercharged with radiation of every sort; Tech Times' Rhodi Lee writes
that the most intense flares can carry up to six times the energy being
emitted by the sun at any given second. The current storm also
triggered a coronal mass ejection (CME), which the ESA describes as
"huge bubbles of gas threaded with magnetic field lines that are ejected
from the Sun over the course of several hours."
"There's been a giant magnetic explosion on the sun," Tom Berger, director of the Space Weather Prediction Center, explained to the Associated Press. "Because it's pointed right at us, we'll at least catch some of the cloud." But he added, "We're not scared of this one."
The largest flares may have the potential to knock out
unhardened satellites and bring down infrastructure all around the
planet; NASA scientists have concluded that another occurrence of the
largest flare in recorded history, the 1859 Carrington Event, could
cause $2 trillion in damage and
take years to repair critical equipment. The chance of such a scenario
occurring between 2012 and 2022 was around 12%, and the planet barely
dodged a flare that could have reached similar proportions in 2012.
"Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth's atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground," NASA said in
a statement. "However — when intense enough — they can disturb the
atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel."
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