The brilliant green, purple and red colors of the aurora borealis may be visible from northern parts of the upper Midwest tonight thanks to a solar flare crashing into Earth.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SPWC) has issued a G1 geomagnetic storm watch for June 4 in anticipation of a coronal mass ejection (CME) exiting the sun striking the magnetic field of our planet.
G1 geomagnetic storms can cause the northern lights to be seen as far south as northern Michigan and Maine.
“A coronal mass ejection is an explosion of solar material. When they reach Earth, a geomagnetic storm can result,” SWPC said in the release. “A CME that left the Sun on June 1 may begin affecting Earth’s atmosphere on June 4.”
“Aurora may become visible along horizon of northern tier states and upper midwest.”
G1 Watch for Tuesday, June 4…
CMEs are large clouds of solar plasma and magnetic field that erupt from the Sun, usually from active magnetic regions such as sunspots, and are often accompanied by solar flares.
If Earth is in the path of a CME, it can reach our planet in one to three days, depending on the ejection speed. When a CME impacts the Earth’s magnetosphere, it can cause geomagnetic storms due to its interaction with our planet’s magnetic field.
Geomagnetic storms are ranked on a scale from G1 (minor) to G5 (extreme), meaning the storm hitting us tonight is the weakest type. There are about 1,700 G1 storms per 11-year solar cycle, while the more powerful G4s occur only about 100 times per cycle, and G5 storms are seen only about four times per cycle.
The G5 geomagnetic storm that hit Earth on May 10 caused the northern lights to be seen in all 50 US states, even as far south as Mexico, and was the first recorded since 2003.
“The strength of a solar storm is rated on a scale that is analogous to the scale of a hurricane.” said Roger Dube, a physics professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. Newsweek.
“Earth’s magnetic field causes charged particles to spin around the polar regions as they move, increasing the chance of collisions with molecules in the atmosphere. These collisions involve the emission of light of different colors, creating colorful atmospheric showers called aurora borealis. .”
ISTOCK / GETTY IMAGES PLUS
According to the SWPC, G1 storms can lead to weak fluctuations in the power grid and minor impacts on satellites. More powerful storms have a far greater effect on our planet and our infrastructure: G5 storms can cause such widespread voltage control problems that there can be damage to transformers and satellites may require more frequent orbital adjustments due to increased atmospheric drag.
The most powerful geomagnetic storm in recorded history was the Carrington Event in 1859, which caused fires in telegraph offices.
“In the strongest Carrington event, there were reports of telegraph lines igniting with the voltages induced on them,” Alan Woodward, a computer science professor and space weather expert at the University of Surrey in the U.K., previously told Newsweek .
“If this were to happen today, you can imagine how many electronic devices we depend on and extrapolate how disruptive they are on Earth.”
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Newsweek is dedicated to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in search of common ground.