50. Giant Solar Storm Hits Earth
Today the biggest solar storm in more than six years has hit Earth! Strangely though, no one, not even space weather forcasters, saw it coming. The solar storm hit Earth at 4:00 pm AEDT on Friday the 24th March 2023, and it was one of the most powerful in the 21st century.
Solar storm's, also known as geomagnetic storms, form from large ejections of solar material from Coronal Mass Ejections (CME). These Coronal Mass Ejections are giant loops of steaming-hot plasma that follow the lines of the sun's loopy Magnetic field. These solar storms are very dangerous and the only thing separating it from us and it is the Earth's magnetic field.
The solar storm caught everyone by surprise. The magnetosphere could not hold all the solar wind, so it burst it out across the sky, causing the whole sky to light up with an aurora. the aurora's were so large, you could see them from the mountain's of Colorado to the city of Mexico in central America.
"These nearly invisible storms launch much more slowly than eruptive CMEs and are very difficult to observe leaving the sun's surface without specialised training," said U.S. space weather forecaster Tamitha Skov.
I hope you enjoyed reading about the solar storms! To watch my video's on other space topics go to my youtube channel ,and to listen to my podcast go to spotify or apple podcast's and search up Give Me Space Henry Perraton.
Until next time, Give Me Space!
Very interesting article. I heard on the news that an aurora was visible in Victoria but had not heard of the solar storm .
We are protected here but astronauts are vulnerable and satellites can be disrupted.