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Earth could suffer the worst solar storm in 165 years as six streams of plasma that erupted from the sun this week are set to make crash into our atmosphere tonight. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) revealed Friday that the worst-case scenario would be what happened during the 1859 Carrington event, which set telegraph stations on fire, cutting communications worldwide. In our modern-day society a geomagnetic storm - a major disturbance of Earth's magnetosphere- of that magnitude would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts and damage to critical infrastructure.

An uncommonly powerful solar storm may occur in outer space Friday, officials have warned - the first in nearly 20 years if it comes to fruition. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued the Severe (G4) Geomagnetic Storm Watch late Thursday - which itself was the first such alert aired since January 2005, when the earth was hit with the highest dose of radiation it had seen in a half-century. This time around, the 'unusual event' could disrupt electronic devices like GPS and parts of power grids, the American agency said - while citing how it may also drape...

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...

The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) , a unit of the U.S. Department of Commerce under NOAA,which sits alongside its terrestrial National Weather Service, has issued a Geomagnetic Storm Watch for all of Earth for Sunday, September 26 for the possibility of G1 or G2 storm conditions. On Thursday, a sunspot, known as AR2871, experienced two explosive eruptions, each producing a significant M-class solar flare. Solar flares are classified according to their strength, on a B-C-M-X scale. B flares are the smallest while X are the largest. Similar to the Richter scale used to help quantify earthquakes, each letter represents...

Early Wednesday morning the Space Weather Prediction Center put out an active warning for a G3 – Strong Geomagnetic Storm. (WABASH VALLEY) WTHI – A coronal mass ejection (CME) hit earth at 2:43 AM Eastern Wednesday, May 12. A CME is a large expulsion of plasma and magnetic fields from the Sun. The Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite discovered a CME racing toward earth at around 961,882 miles per hour. The Space Weather Prediction Center from NOAA said that this CME hit earth at a G3 or a Strong category. When this occurs, voltage corrections may be needed as...

Reports are coming in of strong displays of aurora borealis—the Northern Lights—as a surprisingly strong geomagnetic storm strikes Earth’s magnetic field. “Auroras spilled across the Canadian border into northern-tier US states during an unexpectedly-strong G2-class geomagnetic storm,” said Spaceweather.com, referring to displays late on Friday, March 19 and into Saturday, March 20, 2021. A “G2-class geomagnetic storm” is a moderate solar storm that can bring hours of bright aurora. There could be even more displays coming this Saturday night and beyond.

A Geomagnetic Storm Watch has been issued for Dec. 9th - 11th. It could bring the Northern Lights down into Michigan. On Monday, Dec. 7 a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME), which is an event where the sun releases a significant amount of charged particles, was detected by the Space Weather Prediction Center. The particles generated by this event are predicted to reach Earth starting Wednesday night and lasting through Friday, Dec. 11. The highest activity is expected on Thursday, Dec. 10, but if that peak falls during daylight hours we won't be able to see anything. Our best chances are...

A massive "hole" on the surface of the sun has unleashed a strong solar wind that scientists say may amp up the northern lights in some areas of the U.S. and could disrupt satellite communications over the next few days. Data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory revealed a vast region where the sun's magnetic field has opened up, creating a gap in the sun's outer atmosphere, called the corona. This region, also known as a coronal hole, allows charged particles to escape and flow toward Earth in an increased solar wind. As a result, the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center...

In the late summer of 1859, an extreme geomagnetic storm bombarded the planet, igniting the ghostly, emerald lights of the aurora across skies as far south as Cuba. These powerful solar eruptions of magnetized plasma hitting the Earth caused telegraph wires to spark, disabled communications and set fire to several telegraph offices, according to NASA In the modern world, the threat of space weather is far greater as storms like the Carrington Event of 1859 pose a risk to interconnected power grids, airline operations, satellites and communications networks across the globe. "The overall goal is to ensure that the nation...

A third, much faster coronal mass ejection (CME) is expected to catch up with the two observed on 18 and 19 June bringing them all to Earth in close succession by the UTC day of 22 June 2015. The CME was associated with an R1-Minor flare event observed at 0142 UTC (9:21 pm ET) from Sunspot Region 12371 located near center disk. A G3-Strong Geomagnetic Storm Watch has been issued for 22 June as well as a G2-Moderate Watch for 23 June as the CMEs make their way past Earth. These Watches supersede all prior forecasts. Stay tuned to...

On Sunday, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory detected a complex magnetic eruption on the sun. The NASA Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) also spotted a large coronal mass ejection (CME) The eruption happened around (3:50 am EST), the SDO detected a C3 class solar flare originating from a group of sunspots (called sunspot 1092). The flare itself was not that large, but the filament located about 70,000 miles away erupted at the same time. A filament is a large, bright feature extending outward from the Sun's surface, often in a loop shape. Filament is anchored to the Sun's surface in the...

A Primer on Space Weather Our Star, the Sun We all know that the Sun is overwhelmingly important to life on Earth, but few of us have been given a good description of our star and its variations. The Sun is an average star, similar to millions of others in the Universe. It is a prodigious energy machine, manufacturing about 3.8 x 1023 kiloWatts (or kiloJoules/sec). In other words, if the total output of the Sun was gathered for one second it would provide the U.S. with enough energy, at its current usage rate, for the next 9,000,000 years....

The severe geomagnetic storm bombarding the Earth on Thursday was expected to disrupt radio, television and cell-phone communications worldwide and could force airlines to reroute passenger flights that normally fly over the North Pole. Power-grid operators will have to make sure their systems do not overload from induced current, and satellites in close Earth orbits will need to have their positions constantly monitored as the atmosphere expands from the additional heat and frictional drag increases. "It's really hitting the Earth's magnetic field pretty hard," Joseph Kunches, lead forecaster at the NOAA Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colo., told FOXNews.com. "It's...

**** GEOMAGNETIC STORM IN PROGRESS **** A geomagnetic storm began on December 14 at 1416 UTC (9:16 A.M. EST). The Mauna Loa Solar Observatory (MLSO), operated by the High Altitude Observatory in Boulder Colorado, is allowing SEC to use their latest H-alpha and Helium-I images while the SEC GOES SXI images are unavailable. A solar flare on 13 December at 0240 UTC (12 December, 9:40 P.M. EST) from NOAA Region 930 produced strong radio blackouts (R3) ... R 3 Strong HF Radio: Wide area blackout of HF radio communication, loss of radio contact for about an hour on sunlit...