Coronal Mass Ejection with Earth as a scale. Image retrieved from https://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/7936905134/
A massive solar storm bombarded Earth yesterday, and as a result the Northern Lights could be super-charged increasing the distance at which they can be seen at. What a great time of the year for this to occur considering it matches the festivities of St. Patrick’s Day. The solar storm was strong and ranked a G4 geomagnetic storm (maximum rank is G5) by the NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. The solar storm is considered not to be a danger to technologies we have in orbit like satellites or even astronauts, but has the possibility of interfering with technologies like GPS and radio signals.
The storm’s point of origin occurred from the sun when it released two coronal mass ejections, which is an explosion that releases super hot solar plasma and interferes with our Earth’s magnetic fields, that was aimed right for Earth. Since it lasts several hours the auroras where visible at night in some parts of the United States, mostly containing the states up North, and had no lasting effects that damaged our Earth or electronics. For further reading, check out the article which I have a link to provided in my sources page located at the top of the blog!
The Daily Orbit 