[Music] the most powerful solar storm in the last two decades recently hit Earth creating stunning displays of auroras often known as the northern and southern lights this event was caused by a group of sunspots about 16 times the size of Earth they released several x-class solar flares and coronal mass ejections directly toward our planet these solar emissions led to severe geomagnetic storms ranked at the highest intensity level of G5 marking the most intense storms since the 2003 Halloween storms as a result the colorful auroras were visible much farther south than usual with the northern lights seen as far south as Florida and Mexico and the Southern Lights visible in countries like New Zealand Australia Chile and Argentina the recent solar storms have affected technology in space and on Earth Elon Musk noted that the Starling satellite service was experiencing issues due to the storm he wrote on the social platform X that its satellites were under a lot of pressure but holding up so far the storms also disrupted power grids GPS systems and high frequency Communications in certain areas these events suggest that the solar maximum a period of peak solar activity in the sun's 11-year cycle might arrive earlier than anticipated as the sun's magnetic field flips we can expect more geome Magnetic storms in the coming months while these storms could provide more spectacular displays of auroras they could further disrupt radio communications and electrical infrastructure so what really happened on the surface of the Sun that caused the geomagnetic storm how did it create such a stunning display of light 150 million km away finally and most importantly what will happen when the Sunspot group faces our planet again after 2 weeks before moving ahead make sure to subscribe to our channel for regular space updates the reason behind the recent solar storm is the Sunspot group named AR 3664 sunspots are temporary dark areas on the sun surface looking darker because they are cooler than the surrounding areas the temperature in the center of a sunspot is between 3,00 and 4500 Kelvin much cooler compared to the surrounding area's temperature of about 5800 Kelvin the AR 3664 cluster rotated into view of Earth a few days ago at that time it looked fairly normal but then it grew quickly to become 16 times as wide as our planet spanning 200,000 km or 125,000 Mi it became one of the largest sunspots of the current solar cycle Noah's space weather prediction center issued warnings of increased solar flare risk from AR 3664 at the beginning of the month and the dark patch on the sun lived up to its expectations AR 3664 emitted a total of 75 mclass flares and 10 x-class flares within a week accounting for 50% of the x-class flares this year a solar flare is a sudden localized and intense burst of radiation on the sun resulting in a brilliant flash of light across various wavelengths they can last from minutes to hours and contain tremendous amounts of energy the light emitted from these flares reaches our planet in 8 minutes and 20 seconds flares are ranked by their strength b-class is the smallest followed by c m and then X the most significant the scales differ in strength by a factor of 10 each class is further divided into a scale from 1 to 9 C-Class flares are generally too weak to affect Earth significantly however mclass flares can cause short-term radio blackouts at the poles and minor radiation storms posing potential risks to astronauts most people get confused between a solar flare and a coronal mass ejection or CME a CME is an immense cloud of magnetized particles hurled into space from the Sun these eruptions occur when the sun's magnetic fields explosively realign propelling solar matter into space CMEs travel at speeds exceeding a million milph and can take up to 3 days to reach Earth unlike solar flares CMEs are massive fans of gas swelling into space when a CME interacts with the Earth's magnetic fields it creates currents that drive particles toward Earth's poles leading to the formation of auroras in essence while both solar flares and CMEs are born from the sun's magnetic field realignments they emit different things look different travel differently and have distinct effects on near planets like Earth solar flares manifest as bright flashes of light while CMEs appear as enormous clouds of magnetized particles moving through space the solar activity began to escalate on May 3rd with the observation of an x 1. 6 solar flare within the next 48 hours two additional x-class flares were detected however the situation intensified the following day when the Sunspot region emitted an even larger x4. 5 flare unleashing tremendous energy the first coronal mass ejection was then observed departing from the Sun on May 6th a couple of days later on May 8th another CME was spotted following an M 8.
6 flare then on May 9th two x-class flares resulted in two more CMEs by May 10th four CMEs were traveling toward Earth science SST believe the last three CMEs combined into a single larger event known as a cannibal CME due to their varying speeds and overlapping trajectories when a CME reaches Earth something interesting happens the Earth's magnetic field deflects the solar storm the magnetic fields couple together and create a funnel where the gas streams down on the day side of the pole this results in the daylight Aurora the magnetic fields stretch further back and coupled together the magnetic rubber van breaks and the gas from the solar storm streams along the magnetic lines towards the poles on the night side this is the nighttime Aurora auroras are often thought of as green but when they are especially energetic they can light up the sky with huge red glows the color differences are due to the types of particles involved and the altitudes where these interactions occur blue and purple auroras are seen when solar particles interact with molecular nitrogen up the 62 Mi or 100 km green auroras are created when these particles interact with oxygen at altitudes between 100 and 300 km or about 62 to 186 Mi however the Striking red aoras we sometimes see occur during intense solar storms when these interactions happen with oxygen at higher altitudes between 300 and 400 km additionally for red or roarers to be visible to the naked eye they must be at least 10 times brighter than the green auroras geomagnetic storms can have significant impacts on electrical power grids and satellite infrastructure during a geomagnetic storm geomagnetically induced currents or G's can flow through Power transmission lines and Transformers this can cause Transformers to become saturated and overheat leading to various electrical issues specifically Transformers May Fail protect itive equipment can trip transmission lines might overload and generators could be damaged in severe cases these issues can result in large- scale blackouts an example of this occurred in 1989 in Quebec Canada where a geomagnetic storm left 6 million people without power for 9 hours then in October 2003 the Halloween storms caused widespread satellite and communication disruptions as well as power grid issues in Sweden in 2022 a flare from the Sun resulted in the loss of 40 newly launched starlink satellites currently the Sunspot group known as AR 3664 has moved behind the sun's disc making it temporarily invisible from Earth this means that any solar emissions from this group will not affect our planet for the next 2 weeks however AR 3664 is expected to reappear and face Earth again in 2 weeks based on past behaviors observed in sunspots there's a possibility that this group could remain active once it becomes visible again just before it rotated out of view on May 11th AR 3664 produced significant solar activity including an x 1. 8 and a much larger X 5. 8 flare the latter of which was associated with the CME this activity suggests that AR 3664 could still produce more solar flares in the future and indicates that its cycle of activity isn't over yet AR 3664 is no ordinary Sun spot it's so big that it can be seen from Earth without magnification however do not attempt to look at the sun without a solar filter or eclipse glasses the size of AR 3664 is comparable to the sun spot that caused the Carrington event in 1859 the most intense geomagnetic storm on record the storm associated with the Carrington event caused sparking and fires in Telegraph stations and auroras were visible as far south as the Caribbean and Mexico in 1859 the most advanced electrical technology was the telegraph system today however our society heavily relies on satellites and various technologies that need stable magnetic environments to function correctly this dependence makes us more vulnerable to the effects of significant solar activity such as that exhibited by sunspots similar to AR 3664 The increased Reliance on elect electricity and emerging technology in today's society means that any disruption could lead to trillions of dollars in monetary losses and pose risk to life- dependent on these systems the potential impact of a carington class event today has been estimated to result in Damages ranging from 0.
6 to $2.
