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South Africa's national space agency has issued a severe geomagnetic storm warning after detecting three coronal mass ejections earlier this week as well as powerful solar storms.
The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) issued a severe space weather warning on May 10 (local time) as a G4 solar storm is about to impact Earth, potentially affecting important power grids and causing widespread voltage control problems.
SANSA issued a warning about the severe geomagnetic storm after detecting three coronal mass ejections (CMEs) earlier this week as well as powerful solar storms.
Shock waves from the mass ejections are expected to combine before impacting Earth.
Previously, on May 9, the US Space Weather Prediction Center also issued a G4 geomagnetic storm warning. This is the first time since January 2005 that the US Space Weather Prediction Center has issued a G4 geomagnetic storm warning, the second highest on the five-step scale.
Coronal mass ejections are the name given to giant explosions of plasma that occasionally erupt from the Sun, which can send charged particles, called solar wind, toward Earth.
Five solar flares are forecast to occur, starting late on May 10 and lasting until May 12.
The culprit behind this phenomenon is a cluster of sunspots visible on the right side of the solar disk, 16 times wider than Earth.
Geomagnetic storms can impact infrastructure in near-Earth orbit and on the Earth's surface, potentially disrupting communications, power grids, navigation, radio and satellite operations.
The last time the Earth was hit by a G5 storm – the highest on the scale – was in October 2003. At that time, the storm damaged transformers in South Africa and caused power outages in Sweden.
The true strength of a storm will be known about 60-90 minutes before it reaches Earth thanks to satellites measuring directed energy bursts.
TB (according to VNA)