The US National Weather Service has issued a severe geomagnetic storm warning this Friday due to a series of solar flares, a situation that is occurring for the first time in two decades.
In a statement, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) warned of this particular situation, with more details to be provided in the coming hours.
Geomagnetic storms, according to the statement, can affect Earth’s orbital infrastructure and the Earth’s surface, interfering with communications, power grids, navigation, radio and satellite operations.
The series of eruptions began on May 8 and conditions for the storm to continue could last into the weekend.
“The Great Sunspot has been producing moderate to very strong flares since Wednesday,” the agency said, adding that “at least five of these flares were associated with solar coronal mass ejections that appear to be pointed toward Earth.”
These emissions are explosions of plasma and magnetic fields in the solar corona that cause geomagnetic storms when they occur towards Earth, NOAA explains.
The large sunspot triggered a surprising sequence of five solar mass ejections toward Earth, according to Spacewater.com, which estimates that if it were a hurricane, it would be a Category 04, the second strongest in existence.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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