ASIATODAY.ID, JAKARTA – The United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reports that there will be a strong solar storm that has the potential to cause severe geomagnetic disturbances to the Earth’s atmosphere this weekend.
As a result, GPS and satellite navigation system services are threatened with disruption.
The Space Weather Prediction Center, an agency that is part of NOAA, stated that changes in solar activity continue at a high level and that there are at least four coronal mass ejections moving towards Earth.
“Depending on how gradual this coronal mass ejection occurs, the activity is expected to last longer,” said space scientist at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, Rob Steenburgh, quoted Friday, May 10, 2024.
The maximum coronal mass ejection originates from a very active region in the sun’s southwestern hemisphere, called active region 3664, according to Steenburgh. Active regions are easy to recognize because they contain sunspots, which are temporarily dark areas where the sun’s magnetic field is very strong and eventually penetrate the sun’s surface.
NOAA also reports that this event will produce spectacular aurora lights that can be seen in the northern half of the United States, such as Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, parts of North Dakota.
Auroras occur when energy and particles from the sun interact with Earth’s magnetosphere, causing temporary geomagnetic storms. These solar particles flow along Earth’s magnetic field lines into the upper atmosphere, attracting nitrogen and oxygen molecules, which then release photons of light in various colors.
NOAA has also issued a “G4” warning for geomagnetic storms, which they say are “extremely rare.”
For information, at the G4 level there will usually be a threat of widespread problems in voltage control and impacts on the electrical network which can affect several protection systems.
Satellite navigation systems and low-frequency radio such as GPS can be disrupted and spacecraft operations can also experience problems with charging and tracking on the surface.
This is the first G4 severe geomagnetic storm warning issued by the Space Weather Prediction Center since 2005. The event is expected to continue through Sunday.
“The situation on the Sun right now is quite volatile and we are monitoring it very closely,” said Program Coordinator at NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, Bill Murtagh.
Murtagh also predicts that this geomagnetic storm will last for a long time.
According to communications specialist at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, Amanda Mantiply, the sunspot that produced this storm, AR3664, was similar in size to the Carrington sunspot of 1859.
The sunspot triggered one of the most intense space weather events in history and the storm disrupted telegraph lines across the United States. (ATN)
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