Giant Solar storm To hit earth: a sunspot ‘explodes’
Researchers have reported a hole in the Suns atmosphere equatorial region which is coming to us at a speed of 1.8 kilometers per hour or 500kilometers per second. Worst-case scenario the solar particles are aiming straightly at earth.
The stream is forecasted to hit mother earth on Sunday, May 2 2021 and it could cause menace on our satellites.
According to researchers, it is a G1 storm that can cause a “minor impact on satellite operations” and “weak power grid fluctuations”.
According to astronomer Philips, the G1-class geomagnetic storms will occur on 2nd May when the earth’s magnetic field will be hit by the stream of solar wind.
Astronomer Tony Phillips wrote on his Space Weather site: “Minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible on May 2nd when a stream of solar wind is expected to hit Earth’s magnetic field.
On his website, he states “The gaseous material is flowing faster than 500 km/s from an equatorial hole in the sun’s atmosphere.” He also added, “The gaseous material is flowing faster than 500 km/s from an equatorial hole in the sun’s atmosphere.”
NASA has captured the moment a sunspot ‘explodes’
Researches have cautioned of a strong flare that will strike the earth. Every once in a while, the solar flares are released by the sun which occurs as energy blasts in space.
Occasionally these flares can reach earth although occasionally harmless to earth. However, these flares can be so strong that they harm the Earth’s technology.
According to previous studies the sun releases high energy solar flare in 25 years averagely with the last one occurring in1989. It caused power blackouts in Quebec, Canada, the rocks in the earth’s crust were attributed to spreading the excess energy into the power grid causing outages.
In addition, solar flares can cause satellite failure as they can cause expansion of the earth’s magnetosphere reducing the penetrating ability of satellite signals on the earth’s atmosphere.
Strong solar storms can cause technology glitches on earth. Powerful solar storms can cause technology failure on earth. The Quebec event of 1989 is the most recent event that caused power failure which ran over 12 hours. The blackout caused a complete stall of activities including elevators, dark offices, and stalled underground trains. Down memory lane was the 1859 solar flare event that burned the existing telegraph systems. According to scientists due to the immense use of technology on earth, there is a possibility of future failure, but with few analyzable events, no one literally knows when the next event will hit the earth. That is why researchers were not thrilled to announce that they dug evidence of sky watchers who witnessed the 1582 solar storm.
A Portuguese author named Pero Ruiz Soarsz documented the wariness that he and fellow contemporaries were amazed by the relation between the northern lights and solar storms.
He documented a great fore that occurs in the northern part of the sky that went for three nights. The entire sky seemed to be burning in hot flames like it was burning like no one ever experienced.
Immense rays occurred at midnight and caused great fear and dread, however, they great accustomed as nothing extraordinary happened and they all went to view the great event.
The scientist who studied the event in Tokyo Japan experienced the same flares. In Leipzig Germany, South Korea, Yacheon, and Europe similar events also occurred.
The 1582 events were subject to many myths, they did not understand what they saw. The northern lights can only be visible from places of high altitudes and close to the equator.
Today’s researchers look to uncover events in the past, such as the 1582 solar storm, to investigate the pattern of these strong storms on the sun. They want to know how often they occur. They hope historical records, like that of the 1582 storm, will help them predict future solar storms. At present, with scientists’ limited understanding of the patterns, the historical record suggests that such powerful Earth-sun events occur at least once a century. Their statement said:
The historical record seems to suggest that major storms like the one in 1582 are, at minimum, a once-in-a-century occurrence, and so we should expect one or more of them to hit Earth in the 21st century.
The near-miss solar storm of 2012
If the repeat of the dinosaur’s extinction asteroid passed near earth out of deep space it would catch would wide headlines. 9 years ago, the earth was near-missed by one of the strongest solar storms, one that had never been experienced for 150+ years, but it went unreported.
According to Daniel Baker of the University of Colorado, “If it had hit, we would still be picking up the pieces,”.
NASA and renowned universities published a seminal study in December 2013 called entitled “A major solar eruptive event in July 2012,”. It shows how a strong Coronal Mass Ejection passed through the earth’s orbit, luckily enough the earth had moved a bit. The giant storm instead got the STEREO0-A spacecraft. According to baker earth inhabitants were lucky that the event occurred when it did because it would have been devastating.
Strong solar storms threaten technology, it starts with a solar flare “explosion” in the sun’s magnetic canopy, it results in massive blackouts and GPS navigation errors. The CMES follow, according to scientists when huge CMEs hit earth everything that goes into the socket will fail to work.
The most engraved memory is the Carrington event of 1859 which was viewed by Richard Carrington, an astronomer, hence its name. A few days later, powerful SMEs hit the earth with dangerous consequences like the Northern Lights and the firing up of the telegraph lines and offices.
According to the National Academy for sciences, a similar storm could have devastating effects, its total cost would surpass $2 Trillion.
“In my view, the July 2012 storm was in all respects at least as strong as the 1859 Carrington event,” says Baker. “The only difference is, it missed.”
Physicist Pete Riley of Predictive Science Inc 2014 published a paper whose title was “On the probability of occurrence of extreme space weather events.” by analyzing solar storms with records dating 50+ years, he extrapolated the occurrence of ordinary storms gone haywire and found in his calculations that such an event would occur in ten years.
“Initially, I was quite surprised that the odds were so high, but the statistics appear to be correct,” says Riley. “It is a sobering figure.”
The CME is measured using a parameter called DST (Disturbance storm time) a number obtained from the equator magnetometer readings. What it really measures is the impacts of a CME on the earth’s magnetic field. The Carrington Event was the worst with 800nT (nano tesla) to 1750nT followed y the Quebec event of 1989 with 600nt and other ordinary solar storms only register 50 nT.
If that CME had hit Earth, the resulting geomagnetic storm would have registered a Dst of -1200, comparable to the Carrington Event and twice as bad as the March 1989 Quebec blackout. Baker et al (2013).
A solar storm so huge can inevitably hit the earth and cause devastating events in the future.
