Colorful auroras may be visible in US areas on Wednesday night (16) due to a solar storm, according to the Space Climate Forecasting Center of the National Meteorology Service. The phenomenon may appear farther south of the country than normally appears.
“Aurora can become visible in many northern states and in some parts of the Midwest to Oregon,” according to the center.
The strong solar storm, initially classified as level three on a scale of one to five, can also have limited and lower effects on some technological infrastructures, according to the center. Solar storms usually have the potential to interrupt communications, power grid and satellite operations.
Center officials issued a strong geomagnetic storm alert on Tuesday (15), after multiple coronal mass ejections released by the Sun last Sunday and which arrived on Earth earlier than expected.
Coronal mass ejections, or EMCs, are large clouds of ionized gas, called plasma, and magnetic fields emanating from the outer atmosphere of the sun. When these ejections are directed to the earth, they can cause geomagnetic storms or great disturbances in the earthly magnetic field.
It is likely that small geomagnetic storms persist until Thursday (17), which means that if the weather is cloudy tonight, Auroras can also be visible on Thursday night according to EarthSky.
The sun is currently going through solar maximum, or peak in its 11 -year cycle, and as the sun becomes more active, researchers have observed increasingly intense sunscreens and coronal mass ejections coming out of the flaming orb.
The increase in solar activity causes auroras that dance around the Earth poles, known as Aurora Boreal and Austral Aurora. When the energized particles of coronal mass ejections reach the magnetic field of the earth, they interact with gases in the atmosphere to create these different colors in the sky.
A rare extreme geomagnetic or level five geomagnetic storm reached Earth in May 2024, causing colorful auroras in parts of the world that rarely spot them. During this storm, the tractor manufacturer John Deere He reported that some clients who depended on GPS for precision agriculture suffered interruptions. But in most cases, power and satellite operators maintained satellites in order and orbit, as well as managing the accumulation of intense geomagnetic currents in network systems.
A strong geomagnetic storm, or level four, also caused auroras in much of the United States in October last year.
Authorities of the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recommend using the center’s aurora panel to find out if there is a visibility forecast of the boreal and southern aurora in its region. The panel is constantly updated and can show where an aurora can appear within minutes of the information is available.
And even if the colorful images do not look apparent to the naked eye, cameras and cell phone sensors can capture them, the center authorities said.
NASA releases images of Aurora Boreal Vista do Espaço
This content was originally published in solar storm can make Aurora Boreal visible in the US this Wednesday on CNN Brazil.
Source: CNN Brasil
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