Yesterday, March 20, it was reported that Earth could experience a lightning strike from an incoming coronal mass ejection (CME) today. While astronomers monitor its evolution, a more disturbing development has been spotted on the sun. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory has detected a large hole in the sun’s atmosphere blowing a stream of solar wind. This solar wind is expected to reach our planet between March 23 and 24, and could cause another powerful solar storm. Things could go wrong if there is any incoming CME that day as the resulting effect would be compounded by the influence of the solar wind. Check out the details.
was evolution mentioned By SpaceWeather.com who noted on their website, “A large hole has opened up in the sun’s atmosphere, and it’s spewing a stream of solar wind toward Earth. This is a ‘coronal hole’ – a region in the sun’s atmosphere where magnetic fields open up and allow the solar wind to escape.” “.
Solar winds will soon hit the earth
While the solar wind hitting Earth is a very common occurrence, the timing of this makes it worrisome. Since this wave of fast-moving solar winds is expected to strike a few days after the vernal equinox, the Earth will be very vulnerable to it due to the cracks formed in its magnetosphere. This will result in a strong solar storm in general. This can get worse if any incoming CME bumps into it. In this case, even a G2 or G3-class solar storm is not out of the question.
Typically, such powerful solar storms display intense displays of the aurora borealis. But don’t be fooled by the light displays as they can cause great damage to our infrastructure. These solar storms can destroy satellites, disrupt mobile phone networks and Internet services, cause power grid failures and spoil sensitive terrestrial electronics.
The role of the NASA Solar Observatory
The NASA Solar Observatory (SDO) carries a full suite of instruments to observe the sun and has been doing so since 2010. It uses three critical instruments to collect data from various solar activities. They include the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imaging (HMI) which takes high-resolution measurements of the longitudinal and vector magnetic field over the entire visible solar disk, the Extreme Ultraviolet Variation Experiment (EVE) which measures the extreme ultraviolet radiation of the Sun and the Atmospheric Imaging (AIA) which provides continuous observations For the full disk of the solar chromosphere and corona in seven extreme ultraviolet (EUV) channels.
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