(ORDO NEWS) — The dazzling Aurora Borealis could light up skies as far south as the north of the United States after detecting 17 solar eruptions originating from a single sunspot, two of which are headed straight for Earth.
Two eruptions directed at the Earth have merged into a “coronal mass ejection” and are flying towards us at a speed of 3,027,599 kilometers per hour.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center ( SWPC ), when the ejecta reaches the Earth’s magnetic field on the night of March 31, the result will be a powerful G 3 geomagnetic storm.
G 3 storms are classified as severe geomagnetic storms, meaning that an approaching solar blast could bring auroras as far south as Pennsylvania, Iowa and Oregon.
The sunspot, named AR 2975, has been emitting bursts of electrically charged particles from the Sun’s plasma soup since Monday (March 28).
Sunspots are regions on the surface of the Sun where powerful magnetic fields, created by a stream of electrical charges, form knots before suddenly breaking apart. The resulting energy release triggers bursts of radiation called solar flares, or explosive jets of solar material called coronal mass ejections.
The energy of the storm is expected to be harmlessly absorbed by our magnetic field, but strong solar storms can still cause damage.
According to SWPC, G3 storms can cause “intermittent problems with satellite navigation and low-frequency radio navigation.”
A recent February storm sent 40 Starlink satellites back to Earth.
Scientists believe that the largest solar storm ever seen in modern history was the Carrington event of 1859, which carried about the same energy as 10 billion 1-megaton atomic bombs.
Crashing into the Earth, a powerful shower of solar particles fried telegraph systems around the world and caused auroras brighter than the light of a full moon to appear as far south as the Caribbean Sea.
According to scientists, if such an event were to occur today, it would result in trillions of dollars in damage and massive power outages.
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