2024-01-03 14:54:00
According to the Space Weather Prediction Center, solar flares are expected to intensify in 2024 with possible impacts on Earth.
An end of the year marked by a solar flare. A few hours before the start of the new year this Sunday, December 31 at 10:55 p.m. (4:55 p.m. EST), the hottest star in our solar system erupted, releasing a large amount of energy for several minutes.
Classified in category X.5.0, “it is also the largest eruption observed since September 10, 2017, when an NASA.
Solar flares, far from being rare phenomena, manifest themselves in the form of electromagnetic waves ranging from radio waves, gamma rays, including X-rays. They are listed in four categories (B, C, M and X) depending on their power. Class X is for the most intense eruptions and the accompanying number, ranging from 1 to 9, indicates its level of strength.
It’s the Solar Dynamics Observatory from NASA, responsible for continuously observing the Sun since 2010, which captured an image of the event.
Risk of a solar tsunami?
The December 31, 2023 eruption classified as X.5.0 occurred in the same region as the category X2.8 eruption of last December 14. A sunspot, that is to say a part of the surface of the Sun, named AR3536, has broken away from the star.
Solar flares generally generate coronal mass ejections (CME) which take the form of a wave of plasma propelled at very high speed causing a “geomagnetic storm”, also called a “solar tsunami”, capable of affecting our planet.
“CMEs typically take several days to arrive on Earth, but some of the most intense storms have been observed to arrive within 18 hours,” reports the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
On X (formerly Twitter), NASA wants to be reassuring. She points out that solar flares “cannot pass through the Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground. However, when they are intense enough, they can disrupt the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.” .
“Solar flares can impact high-frequency radio communications, power grids, navigation signals and pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts,” the US space agency said in a statement.
If experts expected CMEs to brush close to the Earth this Tuesday, January 2, 2024, the NOAA indicates that the plasma ejections caused by the eruption of December 31, 2023 are currently “far away” from Earth.
However, if the sunspot affected by the last eruption continues its activity, other eruptions might occur over the next three days, from January 3 to 5, specifies NOAA.
According to the British National Weather Service Met Officethe effects of the solar flare are especially felt in regions of the northern hemisphere, where the northern lights are observed.
Indeed, “the aurora is an indicator of a geomagnetic storm in progress,” informs NOAA.
Projection for 2024
The solar flare of December 31, 2023 is the sign of a very eventful new year. NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center already predicts a new peak of activity between January and October 2024 with new “sunspots between 137 and 173”.
A forecast, likely to change over time and which “will be continually updated on a monthly basis as new sunspot observations become available,” said Mark Miesch, a scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) in a statement.
NOAA still reminds us that “even minor space weather events can have major repercussions”.
In February 2022, a seemingly minor geomagnetic storm burned 38 of SpaceX’s 49 Starlink satellites, preventing them from reaching their final orbit.
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