Solar flares, coronal mass ejections and coronal holes come to the bar…
No, not actually. But a combination of three solar phenomena could work together to produce auroras as far south as Iowa and Pennsylvania. Northern England and Walesin the Northern Hemisphere.
be Forecast released by NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction CenterThe Earth will see a G3 opportunity Geomagnetic storm On the night of September 16th, it was classified as “strong.”
The cause was an X-class solar flare that occurred on the Sun on September 14th, which recorded an extremely high intensity of X4.5. X-class flares are the most powerful flares the Sun can produce.
At the same time, the active sunspot region that caused the flare erupted into a coronal mass ejection (CME) – a massive solar eruption that splashes billions of tons of solar particles and tangled magnetic fields across the solar system.
That’s pretty impressive, but there’s even more to it: At the same time, the Sun also had coronal holes, large regions of weak magnetic fields that allow stronger solar wind to escape, which helped drive the CME.
If the sun were to explode and hit the Earth, things would get really interesting. There are a few effects we can expect. First, there’s radiation from the solar flares. This travels at the speed of light, so we’ve already seen that happen. High frequency radio broadcasting stopped on September 14th.
It takes a little longer for the solar particles to reach Earth, where they get entangled in Earth’s magnetic field lines and accelerate to high latitudes, where they are ejected into the upper atmosphere.
The interaction of solar particles with atmospheric particles creates the dancing lights in the sky – the aurora borealis at the north and south poles.
Auroras are not unusual at this time, as the Sun is in the most active phase of its 11-year cycle, meaning flare and CME activity is currently high.
But the predictions for September 16th are especially high. Appeared in 7 To 10 point Kp index It can be used to predict aurora as an indicator of geomagnetic activity.
Other effects would probably not be noticeable to most people, and include intermittent high frequency radio interference and minor GPS interference. Spacecraft and satellites may also feel some effects in the form of increased drag and surface charges.
If you’re within about 40 degrees of latitude and the skies are clear, you might get lucky and it’s worth getting outside and gazing into the night sky to catch a glimpse of the spectacular sight.
