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Imagine a world where you couldn’t call or text anyone, you couldn’t put gas in your car, you could pay for things, and there was no tap in your water. A nightmare, right? ... Hollywood actor Dennis Quaid is warning that such a scenario isn’t a foreign possibility. During an interview with Tucker Carlson, Quaid highlighted the dangers of a solar storm that could kill more than 90 percent of the population within a year. “Basically, there is a 100 percent probability that our sun, generating what they call a GMD, which is a solar storm, that hits hard, hits...

NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center issued G1-Minor and G2-Moderate Geomagnetic Storm Watches that will run from Feb. 16-18 due to the continuing effects of the Coronal Mass Ejections (CME). According to the SWPC, the geomagnetic storm may affect satellite operations and could even lead to weak power-grid fluctuations. In addition, migratory animals could be affected, and the Northern Lights may be visible farther south than usual, like in northern Michigan and Maine. A second CME was also observed on the sun on Wednesday, and officials said the effects could begin to impact Earth starting late Friday morning or Friday afternoon.

A huge solar storm will strike Earth on Thursday, potentially disrupting power grids and pushing the aurora as far south as Michigan and Maine. Alerts issued by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration early Thursday morning ranked as a K-5 index (out of 9). A ranking of five or above is needed for the administration to issue an alert for upcoming solar storms. Minor impacts to satellites, power grid fluctuations and a visible aurora were noted by NOAA. The highest geomagnetic storm category predicted thus far is a G2 storm on Feb. 18, which is considered “moderate” by NOAA’s rating...

The coronal hole is a gigantic solar gulf stretching across the sun’s center. Coronal holes are areas in the sun's upper atmosphere where our star's electrified gas (or plasma) is less hot and dense than in other regions, which makes them appear black in contrast. Around these holes,the sun's magnetic field lines, instead of looping back in on themselves, point outward into space, beaming solar material outwards at up to 1.8 million mph (2.9 million km/h)... This barrage of energetic solar debris, mostly consisting of electrons, protons and alpha particles, is absorbed by Earth’s magnetic field, which becomes compressed, triggering...

On Nov. 3 a solar storm caused a temporary crack in Earth's magnetic field. The resulting hole enabled energetic particles to penetrate deep into the planet's atmosphere and set off extremely rare pink auroras. An explosion of extremely rare pink auroras recently lit up the night sky above Norway after a solar storm slammed into Earth and ripped a hole in the planet's magnetic field. The breach enabled highly energetic solar particles to penetrate deeper into the atmosphere than normal, triggering the unusual colored lights. The stunning light show was spotted Nov. 3 by a tour group led by Markus...

Yes, it could happen, but it would take a giant solar storm... Solar storms...occur when the sun releases an intense burst of electromagnetic radiation. This disturbance throws off waves of energy that travel outward, impacting other bodies in the solar system, including Earth. When the wayward electromagnetic waves interact with Earth's own magnetic field, they have a couple of effects. The first is that they cause electric currents to flow in Earth's upper atmosphere, heating the air...These geomagnetic storms can create beautiful auroras to appear over polar regions, but they can also disrupt radio signals and GPS. What's more, as...

The Sun has been up to some pretty intense shenanigans lately, but a recent eruption on the far side looks to be absolute science gold. On the evening of September 5 GMT, an enormous coronal mass ejection (CME) was recorded exploding on the far side of the Sun, sending a radiation storm out across the Solar System. It was a type known as a halo CME, in which an expanding halo of hot gas can be seen spewing out around the entire Sun. Sometimes this means that the CME is headed straight for Earth. However, this eruption was on the...

It has been a busy time for solar activity. Back in March of 2022, Earth was hit by separate geomagnetic storms, according to government weather agencies in the U.S. and the U.K. Though the geomagnetic storms likely didn't cause any harm, they brought into focus the potential harm that could come from more powerful storms in the future. Then earlier this month, a G1-class geomagnetic storm hit the Earth, causing bright auroras over Canada. The only problem is that nobody saw this storm coming until it was quite late. Five days ago, a giant sunspot and filaments on the solar...

A solar storm will sweep across the Earth Wednesday night, raising prospects of dazzling Northern Lights visible as far south as Chicago while prompting airlines and electric-grid operators to step up monitoring of the potentially damaging geomagnetic activity. Solar eruptions—called coronal mass ejections—burst from the sun in two waves Monday and are building up enough energy to potentially become a level 3 geomagnetic storm when it hits, according to Rob Steenburgh, a space scientist with the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center. Solar storms, like hurricanes, are ranked on a five-step scale, with one being the weakest and five the strongest....

A powerful solar storm is set to hit Earth on Thursday (March 31) with spectacular aurora displays accompanying it after the sun fired nearly 20 flares from a single sunspot in just two days. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned that two coronal mass ejections (CMEs), spat out from the overactive sunspot AR2975, on Monday (March 28), are heading toward our planet and might trigger a geomagnetic storm rated as G3 on NOAA's five-point scale.

SpaceX has lost dozens of satellites after they were hit by a geomagnetic storm a day after launch, causing them to fall from orbit and burn up.Such solar "storms" are caused by powerful explosions on the sun's surface, which spit out plasma and magnetic fields that can hit the Earth.The company, owned by billionaire Elon Musk, said up to 40 of 49 satellites from last week's launch were hit.They had been due to join its Starlink satellite internet project.Starlink is Mr Musk's bid to provide high-speed internet using thousands of orbiting satellites. The system is relatively expensive, but can be...

This week's solar storm is bigger than the storm over Halloween. The Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), an office within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has been monitoring a series of outbursts from our sun that began on Monday (Nov. 1). Since then, the sun has produced several coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are bubbles of hot gas and magnetic field; while such activity can come from any part of the sun, the current examples have headed out into space toward Earth, making them of particular interest to humans. Some sun weather trackers dubbed one of those eruptions...

A powerful solar storm is due to hit Earth today and could cause havoc for power grids, weather agencies have warned. The UK's Met Office and the US's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have forecasted a coronal mass ejection (CME) – a massive expulsion of plasma from the Sun's corona (its outermost layer) at around 12pm EST (5pm BST) today. Possible effects of the solar storm, caused by the CME, are power grid fluctuations and orientation irregularities for spacecraft in the form of 'increased drag' on low-Earth orbiters. The aurora – a natural light display in Earth's sky, also...

The “black swan” event of a solar superstorm directed at earth could prompt an “internet apocalypse” across the entire globe that could last for several months, new research (pdf) has warned. University of California Irvine assistant professor Sangeetha Abdu Jyothi presented the new research, titled “Solar Superstorms: Planning for an Internet Apocalypse,” last month during the Association for Computing Machinery’s annual conference for their Special Interest Group on Data Communication (SIGCOMM). “One of the greatest dangers facing the internet with the potential for global impact is a powerful solar superstorm,” Jyothi wrote in the new research paper. “Although humans are...

Forecasters expect the stream to hit Earth on Sunday, May 2, and it could affect Earth's satellite technology. It has been categorised as a G1 class storm which can lead to “weak power grid fluctuations” and can have a “minor impact on satellite operations”. Astronomer Tony Phillips wrote on his Space Weather site: "Minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are possible on May 2nd when a stream of solar wind is expected to hit Earth's magnetic field. While this solar storm is largely is insignificant...the Sun can also release solar flares so powerful that they can cripple Earth's technology. "The probability of...

Planet Earth is under a Geomagnetic Storm Watch on Sunday and, luckily, that isn’t as scary as it sounds. In fact, some people in these situations pack up and hop on a plane – not to flee to safety, but to view the beautiful result: auroras, or the Northern Lights. Scientists recorded a partial halo CME and determined based on it’s size and intensity, that Earth will experience geomagnetic storm conditions early to mid-day Sunday. They expect G2, or moderate storm levels, and it’s predicted to cause hours of brilliant aurora. G2 storm conditions can trigger voltage alarms in power...

Scientists found that the level of carbon-14, an isotope of carbon, was much higher in rings from that year than usual. Some years later, looking at air samples from ice cores, scientists saw that there were elevated levels of beryllium-10 and chlorine-36 as well. The common factor in all these elements is that they are created when extremely high-energy subatomic particles hit Earth's air and ground. .... The only way to get particles at energies like this is from space, where powerful magnetic fields in exploding stars...can accelerate the particles to such high speeds. But the 774 event was so...

More than 2,600 years ago, strange red clouds over Mesopotamia drew the attention of soothsayers across the land. Their royal reports have now helped confine the date of a severe solar storm that washed over the planet. Based on readings of carbon isotopes trapped in tree rings deposited around that time, astronomers already suspected there was a period of intense solar activity around the middle of the 7th century BC... And it seemed like it had pretty far-ranging effects. Earlier in the year, geologists reported similar signs of a storm from around this period in traces of radioactive particles buried...

An intense blast of high-energy protons from the Sun pummelled the Earth in about 660 BC and left a distinct record of cosmogenic nuclei in the Greenland ice sheet. The discovery was made by an international team of scientists who say the event was one most powerful solar storms known to have struck Earth. The team calculates that the storm was about ten times more intense than any event that has occurred in the past 70 years. “If that solar storm had occurred today, it could have had severe effects on our hi-tech society”, says Raimund Muscheler of Sweden’s University...

Have you ever wanted to see auroras, the rippling lights that sometimes paint the heavens with unearthly blues or greens and make you feel like you're in a van Gogh painting? If you live in a northern U.S. state, Tuesday might be your chance. Residents in some parts of at least 15 states across the country may be able to see the awe-inspiring phenomenon, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said on Monday. "The further north you are -- say, upstate New York or upper Michigan -- the more likely you are to see the aurora," Rodney Viereck, a...