The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the United States (US) government reported on Friday (May 10) that the Earth has been blasted by the strongest solar storm since 2003.
“Extreme (G5) conditions reached Earth at 6:54 pm EDT. Geomagnetic storming is likely to persist through the weekend as several additional Earth-directed Coronal Mass Ejection (CMEs) are in transit,” the NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center stated in a post on X.
According to the center, the storm might have an impact on GPS, power grids, satellite navigation, and other systems. The center stated that vital infrastructure operators had been contacted.
The solar storm has the potential to create northern lights as far south as Alabama and Northern California
“The last extreme (G5) event occurred with the Halloween storms in October 2003. That event resulted in power outages in Sweden and damaged transformers in South Africa.”
According to the NOAA, the storm has the potential to create northern lights as far south as Alabama and Northern California.
According to the NOAA, solar radiation storms occur when a large-scale magnetic eruption propels charged particles in the solar environment to extremely high speeds, frequently resulting in a coronal mass ejection and concomitant solar flare.
“The most important particles are protons, which can get accelerated to large fractions of the speed of light. At these velocities, the protons can traverse the 150 million km from the sun to Earth in just 10’s of minutes or less,” it added.
The agency also pointed out that even when the storm is over, signals between GPS satellites and ground receivers could be scrambled or lost.