Forecasters at the US National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued an alert that the planet is about to pass closely through a stream of high-speed solar wind.
Spaceweather.com reported this phenomenon and said that this event is the result of gaseous material flowing from a southern region in the Sun’s atmosphere.
These types of “coronal holes” are areas where the Sun’s plasma is less dense and cooler than its surroundings because of the magnetic field of stars which extends out into space as an open field. These regions appear as dark areas when looking at their extreme ultraviolet and X-ray images.
According to the NOAA, this geomagnetic storm, which will arise because of an encounter of the Earth with the solar wind stream, will be classified only as a G1 event as it will be comparatively minor. The use of the G-scale is to categorize geomagnetic storms, with G1 being the smallest-sized category in the 5-point G-scale.
As forecasters confirmed it as a G1 storm, this event on the 3rd of August has the capacity to have a slight impact on satellite operations along with creating minor fluctuations in the power grid.
On the contrary, G5 events are considered the most turbulent category as they are capable of severely impacting satellite operations. In addition to this, they can cause surges that will result in power grid disruptions. Last but not least, a G5 event can disrupt high-frequency radio communications for several days.
Thankfully, G5 event solar storms generally occur only about 4 times in every 11-year solar cycle.
Another result that is likely to happen due to Wednesday’s geomagnetic storm, is the generation of auroras at lower-than-usual latitudes. Experts predict that these communications interferences are to be felt, and auroras are visible, over the states of Michigan and Maine in the US.
Auroras are a natural electrical phenomenon characterized by the appearance of streamers of reddish or greenish light in the sky, especially near the northern or southern magnetic pole. The effect is caused by the interaction of charged particles from the sun with atoms in the upper atmosphere.
There are two primary gases that are found in the Earth’s atmosphere: one is oxygen, and another is nitrogen. Oxygen emits a greenish light, whereas nitrogen appears mostly in blue, purple, and pink hues.
The most intense geomagnetic storm recorded in history was known as “the Carrington Event,” which peaked from the 1st to 2nd of September 1859 during solar cycle 10. The event was caused by a so-called Coronal Mass Ejection rather than just the outcome of Earth passing through a stream of the solar wind at a very high speed.
These potent geomagnetic storms occur when the Sun emits a cloud of particles that are changed along with electromagnetic fluctuations.
Back in 1859, the Carrington Event impacted telegraph networks across North America and Europe and the recently-laid transatlantic link, which connects these two regions.
Space weather can produce electromagnetic fields that induce extreme currents in wires, akin to that of 1859, which caused telegraph pylons to flash, operators to receive electric shocks, and a few lines to completely fail.
In the meantime, other connections appeared to remain operational even though their power had been cut. Therefore these electrical currents, which were strong enough, were induced by the electromagnetic storm.
As per research presented at the conference of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) SIGCOMM 2021, an immense solar storm, just like the Carrington Event, has the capacity to disable Internet connectivity for several weeks.
Fiber optic cables that are used as a backbone of the Internet, are safe from electromagnetic fluctuations caused by solar storms, unlike that of Victorian-era telegraph lines.
However, the same cannot be said regarding signal boosters, as they are linked to undersea cables to maintain their connection irrespective of long distances.
The underwater cables used for long distances are not only more vulnerable to the impacts of space weather, but they are also integrally more hard to access for repairs.
As per predictions by astrophysicists, there are 1.6-12% chances of a solar storm being capable enough to cause catastrophic disruptions to modern society, and which could impact the planet over the next ten years.
