(TheProudRepublic.com) – A U.S. agency revealed that the Earth was slammed by a powerful and intense solar storm that could push the northern lights during night skies further south than usual.
A specialized center at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported that the storm reached a level-four geomagnetic storm on a scale of five starting at 1500 GMT.
The NOAA said that these conditions might last several hours but are not expected to get any stronger.
“A severe geomagnetic storm includes the potential for aurora to be seen faintly as far south as Alabama and northern California,” NOAA noted.
Furthermore, the storm was caused by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are bursts of particles from the Sun. When these particles hit Earth, they can disrupt its magnetic field.
“There are a lot of auroras now… If it lasts until nightfall here, we might be able to see some,” Eric Lagadec, an astrophysicist at the Cote d’Azur Observatory in France, said on X.
Over the weekend, NASA astronaut Matthew Dominick shared a stunning photo of the aurora borealis — or Northern Lights — taken from the International Space Station, where he is currently stationed.
However, solar or geomagnetic storms can also cause problems, as they might interfere with high-frequency communications, affect satellites, and overload power grids.
NOAA claimed that operators of sensitive infrastructure have been warned to take steps to minimize these issues.
In May, the planet experienced the most intense geomagnetic storms in 20 years, which led to auroras appearing at much lower latitudes than usual in places like the US, Europe, and Australia.
Additionally, these types of storms are becoming more frequent as the Sun approaches the peak of its 11-year activity cycle.
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