Massive solar storm to strike Earth this week after three holes observed in the Sun: Reports
The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has warned that a solar storm is forecast to hit Earth sometime this week. A solar storm is a disturbance in Earth's magnetic field, which is caused by changes in solar wind.
A G1 (minor) geomagnetic storm watch issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for this week "due to the arrival of a negative polarity coronal hole high-speed stream," SWPC on Sunday said.
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space Flight Center's associate director for science in the heliophysics science division, C. Alex Young, in a published report on Monday said that at least three "substantial" coronal holes were observed in the Sun last week, according to reports.
Young said: "These are areas of open magnetic field from which high-speed solar wind rushes out into space. This wind, if it interacts with [Earth’s] magnetosphere, can cause aurora to appear near the poles."
These magnetic storms which occur on the surface of the Sun can result in "solar flares."
According to NASA, a solar flare "is an intense burst of radiation coming from the release of magnetic energy associated with sunspots. Flares are our solar system’s largest explosive events."
Reports state that a strong solar storm can even result in a coronal mass ejection (CME), which is a huge explosion of magnetic field and plasma from the Sun's corona.
"When CMEs impact the Earth’s magnetosphere, they are responsible for geomagnetic storms and enhanced aurora," the SWPC explained
The Space Weather Live, however, says that the current storm, which is set to strike Earth soon, was a result of a coronal hole stream.
"Other than a coronal mass ejection, a coronal hole high-speed stream (CH HSS) arrives slowly with first a steady increase in the solar wind density over the course of a couple of hours. This increase of the solar wind density occurs because the faster solar wind bunches up the slower solar wind particles in front of it," Space Weather Live said.
These holes on the Sun's surface allow solar wind to escape the sun and enter space, according to reports.
NOAA says: "As the CH HSS begins to arrive at Earth, solar wind speed and temperature increase, while particle density begins to decrease."
A meteorologist at at the Space Weather Operations Center in Nebraska, Michael Cook, on Sunday said that it will be interesting to see how the current storm turns out to be.
Cook on Twitter said: "Last time we experienced brief G1 conditions, then unsettled and by the time it was basically off the Sun’s visible disk unexpected G2 storming commenced at Earth."