A powerful eruption on the sun has thrown a solar magnetic storm at Earth that could hit Earth on Wednesday. The explosion occurred in the large sunspot region AR2936, which has grown even larger over the past few weeks, releasing a coronal mass ejection (CME) directed toward Earth.
The Centre of Excellence for Space Science, part of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Kolkata, said the CME’s arrival from the sun is expected to be from the evening of February 2 to the morning of February 3. “However, its rate of impact is estimated to be moderate. We may expect minimal to moderate disturbances,” the agency said.
The CME was thrown into open space by an M1-class solar flare on January 30. The flare lasted about four hours, pushing material into the space vacuum of the inner planets, including Earth. Moderate-intensity G2-class geomagnetic storms are possible when flares hit Earth’s magnetic field and kick auroras across the poles.
The massive flare originated in the sunspot region AR2936, which has become one of the most active regions on the Sun’s surface during the new solar cycle. This sunspot is so big that the Earth can fit into it.
A coronal mass ejection, one of the largest eruptions on the surface of the sun, can accelerate a billion tons of material into space at millions of miles per hour. This solar material flows out through the interplanetary medium, hitting any planet or spacecraft in its path. When a very powerful CME blows past Earth, it can damage electronics in our satellites and disrupt radio communication networks on Earth.
The latest CME occurred just weeks after sunspot AR2929 erupted, producing a powerful M5-class sun that ionized the top of Earth’s atmosphere and caused shortwave radio outages around the Indian Ocean.
Solar flares typically occur in active regions, which are areas of the Sun marked by the presence of a strong magnetic field, usually associated with sunspot groups. As these fields develop, they reach unstable levels and release energy in various forms.
Geomagnetic storms are major disturbances in Earth’s magnetosphere and occur when the energy of the solar wind is exchanged very efficiently into the space environment around Earth.
If the CME collided with Earth, a geomagnetic storm could be triggered, and NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a warning of a possible G2 (moderate) geomagnetic storm.
The agency said multiple analyses by SWPC forecasters indicated the CME was traveling at about 23,83,200 kilometers per hour. “The arrival of the CME will first be detected on the NOAA DSCOVR spacecraft (about 1 million miles away) before Earth arrives.
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