A Solar Storm Will 'Directly Hit' The Earth and Cause Signal Disruptions - Expert Says

Joaquin Victor Tacla, Tech Times 18 July 2022, 05:07 am

The Sun is becoming more active than ever!

A period of increased solar activity has been observed this year, 2022. In March, the government weather organizations in the U.S. and the U.K. said that separate geomagnetic storms had hit our planet.

Even though the geomagnetic storms didn't destroy anything, they highlighted the possible harm that could result from more intense storms in the future, according to Interesting Engineering.

After that, a G1-class geomagnetic storm struck Earth earlier this month, resulting in colorful auroras over Canada's skies. The striking issue posed by this event is that this storm wasn't anticipated until it was too late.

Blackout-Causing Solar Storm

On July 12, astronomers are once again concerned about possible Earth-directed solar flares and coronal mass ejections that could cause blackouts due to the presence of a large sunspot and filaments on the Sun's surface.

But more recently, a powerful solar flare fired off from the Sun on Friday, July 15, and was reported to be capable of causing radio blackouts throughout the world.

Direct Hit

A "direct hit" from a solar storm is now expected to take place on Tuesday, according to Dr. Tamitha Skov, also known as the "Space Weather Woman," who predicted it on Saturday. She broke the news and a video of a NASA prediction model on her Twitter account.

Direct Hit! A snake-like filament launched as a big #solarstorm while in the Earth-strike zone. NASA predicts impact early July 19. Strong #aurora shows possible with this one, deep into mid-latitudes. Amateur #radio & #GPS users expect signal disruptions on Earth's nightside. pic.twitter.com/7FHgS63xiU
— Dr. Tamitha Skov (@TamithaSkov) July 16, 2022

Her alarming tweet was accompanied by a video of the Sun to depict how the event would occur.

"The magnetic orientation of this Earth-directed solar storm is going to be tough to predict. G2-level (possibly G3) conditions may occur if the magnetic field of this storm is oriented southward!" she added.

The Sun's More Active Than Ever

These occurrences are anticipated to rise as the Sun enters an active period of its 11-year solar cycle. Small planes and ships' voyages may be hampered by GPS navigation system blackouts caused by solar storms, which are common. But aside from that, there isn't much cause for concern.

Geomagnetic storms are classified by NOAA on a scale from G1, which can boost auroral activity and cause small power outages, to G5, which is where powerful storms like the Carrington event occur.

The large solar storm Carrington Event raged the space back in September 1859, a few months before the solar maximum took place in 1860.

In March of last year, we went through a G3 storm, which is a fairly typical storm. However, even a G2 can do a lot of harm. SpaceX proved this in Feb 2022 when it lost 40 satellites after a solar storm.

According to a study, there is an annual average 4% probability of a major solar storm and a 0.7 percent chance of another Carrington event.

However, according to the experts, a super-storm could occur more frequently than we believed, indicating that it could occur at any time.

This article is owned by Tech Times

Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla