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'NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC)- a division of the National Weather Service - is monitoring the sun following a series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that began on May 8,' the emergency alert read. 'Space weather forecasters have issued a Severe (G4) Geomagnetic Storm Watch for the evening of Friday. 'Additional solar eruptions could cause geomagnetic storm conditions to persist through the weekend,' it went on, before describing the abnormal activity that tipped space specialists off. 'A large sunspot cluster has produced several moderate to strong solar flares since Wednesday at 5:00 am ET,' it read....

On June 20, 2013, an area on the Sun’s surface erupted, sending out a coronal mass ejection (CME) that propelled billions of tons of charged particles into space. The storm reached Earth about two days later. Most of us didn’t even notice. We were busy watching the Miami Heat beat San Antonio Spurs, 95-88 in Game Seven of the NBA Finals. If we weren’t into basketball, we may have been surprised to hear that Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) had became the Senate’s third Republican to publicly endorse same-sex marriage. Behind our backs, the Sun was churning out a storm of...

Elon Musk's satellite internet service Starlink just got dealt an expensive blow — the company's currently estimating that 40 of the 49 Starlink satellites it launched on February 3rd will be destroyed because of a geomagnetic storm. The storm caused "up to 50 percent higher drag than during previous launches," keeping the deployed satellites from reaching their proper orbit around the Earth.

A massive solar flare is due to hit Earth today, authorities are warning - potentially disrupting power grids and bringing the Northern Lights as far south as New York. The flare - officially known as a coronal mass ejection (CME) - was observed on Saturday on the side of the sun directly facing our planet and comes as we enter a period of increased solar activity. An alert was published by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which warned the geomagnetic storm could cause power grid fluctuations with voltage alarms at higher latitudes, where the Earth is more...

Planet Earth is under a Geomagnetic Storm Watch on Sunday and, luckily, that isn’t as scary as it sounds. In fact, some people in these situations pack up and hop on a plane – not to flee to safety, but to view the beautiful result: auroras, or the Northern Lights. Scientists recorded a partial halo CME and determined based on it’s size and intensity, that Earth will experience geomagnetic storm conditions early to mid-day Sunday. They expect G2, or moderate storm levels, and it’s predicted to cause hours of brilliant aurora. G2 storm conditions can trigger voltage alarms in power...

STORM WARNING: NOAA forecasters estimate a 90% chance of geomagnetic storms on Jan. 9th when a CME is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. The speed of the solar wind around Earth could spike to 700 km/s (1.6 million mph) shortly after the impact, sharply compressing Earth's magnetosphere. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras. http://spaceweather.com/ HUGE SUNSPOT, CHANCE OF FLARES: The source of the incoming CME is AR1944, one of the largest sunspots of the current solar cycle. The active region sprawls across more than 200,000 km of solar terrain and contains dozens of dark cores. The largest...

2014-01-09 12:36 UTC Awaiting CME Arrival The ongoing Solar Radiation Storm peaked briefly just above the S3 (Strong) threshold but is now in decay and currently at S2 (Moderate) levels. Enhancement back across the S3 level is possible with the anticipated coronal mass ejection (CME) arrival. The CME, originally expected to arrive around 0800 UTC (3:00 a.m. EST) today, January 9, is now slightly overdue. However, pre-arrival signatures from EPAM data on the ACE spacecraft still show this transient en route. G3 (Strong) Geomagnetic Storm activity is still expected on January 9 and 10. Updates here as this event unfolds.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A wave of charged plasma particles from a huge solar eruption has glanced off the Earth's northern pole, lighting up auroras and disrupting some radio communications, a NASA scientist said. But the Earth appears to have escaped a widespread geomagnetic storm, with the effects confined to the northern latitudes, possibly reaching down into Norway and Canada. "There can be sporadic outages based on particular small-scale events," said Dean Persnell, project scientist at NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory at Goddard Space Flight Center. He told AFP the official forecast is "for generally quiet conditions today, perhaps some minor storming...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The solar wind pries open immense cracks in the Earth's magnetic field, holding them apart while it gushes through to cause geomagnetic storms, scientists reported on Wednesday. The findings could help scientists better predict the storms, which can disrupt power, satellites and communications and endanger astronauts, the U.S. space agency NASA (news - web sites) said. "We think we have solved an old and long-standing controversial discussion of how this process of crack formation really works," Harald Frey of the University of California, Berkeley, who led the study, told a news conference. "Now that we know these...

The solar regions that produced dramatic space weather activity in late October and early November have returned to the visible side of the sun. These large sunspot groups have been numbered as NOAA Region 501 (previous Region 484), 507 (previous Region 488), and 508 (previous Region 486). All three regions have decreased in size since last rotation; however, they are bright and show considerable magnetic complexity. Region 501 has already produced a category R2 (moderate) radio blackout and spawned a category G4 (severe) geomagnetic storm, which began today, November 20th, at 2:04 a.m. EST (0804 UTC) and is strengthening. The...

The powerful geomagnetic storms of late October disrupted communications, caused spotty power outages and produced beautiful aurora displays even to mid latitudes. At virtually every moment in time, there are active volcanoes producing tremors or lava flows or gas and ash emissions. Major volcanic eruptions are rarer. Their frequency is more like one per decade or even longer. Volcanic eruptions certainly have direct, local, sometimes devastating effects and the larger ones have been shown to have an influence on the world's weather. The last major eruptions were in the early 1990s (Pinatubo and Cerro Hudson). The two biggest eruptions before...

SOLAR EXPLOSIONS: Solar activity is high. An intense X5-class solar flare erupted today (Oct. 23rd at 8:35 UT) from sunspot 486 near the sun's southeastern limb. The explosion hurled a coronal mass ejection (CME) into space. See the movie. Although the CME was not Earth-directed, it could deliver a glancing blow to our planet's magnetic field as early as Oct 24th (although the 25th is more likely). Sunspotcycle.com Another CME was already en route when this morning's explosion occured. Pictured right, it was launched on Oct 22nd by an explosion near sunspot 484. Forecasters expect it to arrive on Oct....

TOKYO, Oct 25 (AFP) - A Japanese earth observation satellite, one of the biggest in the world, stopped sending data for reasons which remained unclear Saturday, the national space agency said. "It was confirmed at about 8:49 am (2349 GMT Friday) that the satellite had developed some abnormality and its operation had shifted into an energy-saving mode," the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency said in a statement. "At about 8:55 am it became impossible to confirm telemetry data following a disruption in communications," it said, adding that the agency was trying to ascertain the cause of the trouble and bring the...

<p>BOULDER, Colo. (AP) -- A strong geomagnetic storm was expected to hit Earth on Friday with the potential to affect electrical grids and satellite communications.</p> <p>One of the largest sunspot clusters in years developed over the past three days and produced a coronal mass ejection, similar to a solar flare, at 3 a.m. EDT Wednesday, forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.</p>