NASA has warned that Today it will impact our planet and “snake shaped filament” coming from the Sun. Although they are also open to the possibility that the impact does not occur today, but rather tomorrow or the day after tomorrow (July 20 and 21). The storm will be of class G1, being the lowest intensity possible.However, Dr. Tamitha Skov assures that It will be a “Direct hit“it could cause”signal breaks (of satellite operations) in the night part of the Earth”.
What is a geomagnetic storm?
Nail `geomagnetic storm´ o ‘solar storm’ it’s a disturbance of the earth’s magnetic field, It occurs following an explosion on the surface of the Sun that releases magnetic energy that has accumulated in the star’s atmosphere.
To put the magnitude of these explosionsit is important to understand that one of them is equivalent to million hydrogen bombs detonating at the same time on the surface of the star. The enormous power of this solar explosion gives rise to a strong increase in the energy charged particles continuously produced by the Sun.
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And this sudden increase in particles forms -in turn- a “coronal mass ejection”, which is nothing but a large mass of very hot and ionized plasma which moves superimposed on the solar wind, at a speed of between 300 and 1000 kilometers per second. If the Earth is in the path of these coronal mass ejections, it can take between 15 and 72 hours for the particles reach the surface of the earth (hence the range in impact day calculations).
In this case, the plasma and energy filament said magnetic “importance” and which will have an impact during this week on Earth, jumped from the Sun last July 15. Dr. Sebastian Voltmer, who captured an image of the prominence, told SpaceWeather that “the size of the prominence is impressive” (…) “He was spectacular see how a very fast part was ejected and detached to the side”.
Under normal conditions, this “solar wind” collides with the earth electromagnetic field, which would deflect electromagnetic energy towards the poles. When this phenomenon becomes visible, it is what we call northern Lights (northern hemisphere) and aurora australis (Southern hemisphere).
But when these radiations are particularly strong (as during a solar storm), the magnetosphere is not able to deflect the radiation towards the poles and the phenomenon moves towards areas closer to the “0º parallel” or the “equator”. i.e. what is possible in the next few days auroras may be visible in places as far apart as Australia, Scotland, southern Sweden or the northern states of the United States.
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How can this affect us?
East is the most benign consequence that we could see in the next few days. In fact, a solar storm could damage spacecraft electronics, overloads in the electrical network (which could cause fires in the transformers), loss of the GPS signal, interference of the radio signal, (…). All this could in turn generate difficulties for air navigation, wiring damage land and poor connectivity in underwater damage.
And if the solar storm was extreme, the entire electrical and communication network could be totally interrupted. Fortunately, the predictions do not indicate that something like this can stop being something purely theoretical. However, there is the possibility. And if something like that were to happen, we’re talking about a disaster of the first magnitude… for which we would not be – at all – prepared.