Solar Storm 2024, Northern Lights Aurora Tonight: Astonishing Sight

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced late on Friday that a G5, or “Extreme,” geomagnetic Solar storm was occurring on Earth.

Since 2003, this is the first G5 storm to make landfall on Earth.

Effects of Solar Storm Will Last How Long?

Within the next few hours and days, multiple waves of flares are predicted to strike Earth, potentially causing power outages, damaging satellites, and interfering with communications and navigation.

This is according to NOAA. A portion of Sweden experienced a temporary blackout due to the 2003 incident, and South Africa’s electrical transformers suffered damage.

Northern Lights Auroras Visibility;

According to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center, this most recent storm could produce auroras that can be seen all the way south to Northern California and Alabama.

Posters shared images of brilliant auroras seen in Scandinavia, the U.K., Russia, and continental Europe on social media. Some people claimed to have seen auroras all the way down to Mallorca, Spain.

What Causes Sun Storms Like This?

A sunspot cluster on the sun’s surface, which is 17 times the earth’s diameter, is the solar storm’s genesis.

The spots are full of entangled magnetic fields that can launch massive amounts of charged particles toward our planet like slingshots.

Known as Coronal Mass Ejections, these occur more frequently at the height of the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle.

Normally, they pass above Earth, but this time, according to NOAA, some are squarely in our direction.

“We have high confidence that a series of coronal mass ejections … are directed right towards Earth,” Shawn Dahl, service coordinator for the Space Weather Prediction Center told reporters.

Potential Side Effects:

Dahl notes that although they anticipate a huge storm, there is still a great deal of unknown regarding potential side effects.

In 1859, there was the most disruptive solar storm on record.

It was dubbed the “Carrington Event,” because it produced sparkling auroras that could be seen down to Mexico and Hawaii.

Additionally, it destroyed North American and European telegraph networks.

Even if this geomagnetic storm isn’t as powerful, electrical and electronic technologies are becoming increasingly important in today’s globe.

The storm’s magnetic field may create unexpected electrical currents in long-distance power lines, which could flip safety devices and temporarily cut off power in some regions.

This depends on the storm’s orientation.

Additionally, the ionosphere—a region of Earth’s atmosphere that is full of charged particles—is probably going to be affected by the storm.

Signals used by some long-distance radio transmissions to “bounce” around the world will probably be blocked by the ionosphere.

According to Rob Steenburgh, a space scientist at NOAA, the particles may also refract and otherwise jumble signals from the global positioning system. A few days following the storm, those effects may still be felt.

According to Steenburgh, it’s unknown how severe the disruptions will be. There are more satellites in orbit even though we rely on GPS more than ever.

“Hopefully, outages shouldn’t last too long,” says Steenburgh.

Furthermore, like ripples in water, the storm’s anomalies are continually moving through the ionosphere.

Other negative impacts could be caused by the storm’s radiation. It may cause damage to satellites at high altitudes and increase air drag at low altitudes, which could cause certain spacecraft to sink toward Earth.

The University of Michigan’s chair of the Department of Climate and Space Sciences, Tuija Pulkkinen, cautions that the alterations to orbits have disastrous effects.

Thousands of satellites have been deployed into low Earth orbit by firms like SpaceX since the previous solar maximum.

Now, the orbits of those satellites will be abruptly altered.

The Situation in Outer Space, Are Atraunauts in Danger?

“There’s a lot of companies that haven’t seen these kind of space weather effects before,” she adds.

NASA said that astronauts will not take any further safety precautions in a statement: “NASA completed a thorough analysis of recent space weather activity and determined it posed no risk to the crew aboard the International Space Station and no additional precautionary measures are needed,” the organization announced late on Friday.

How to Capture Northern Lights Aurora Tonight?

People don’t need to do much to prepare for this storm, however, satellite operators and utilities will surely be busy during the next few days.

“As far as what the general public should be doing, hopefully, they’re not having to do anything,” Dahl asserts.

He advises keeping a radio and some flashlights close by in case of a temporary blackout, which may be the biggest issue.

Steenburgh continues, “And remember to go outside and look up.”

The aurora is visible far further south than normal during this occurrence.

He goes on to say that even if you are unable to view the aurora with your eyes, you should still attempt to take a picture of the sky using a current cell phone camera.

“Space weather is the gift that is the aurora,”