The Sun unleashes at least eight solar flares toward Earth

At least eight solar flares have been unleashed toward Earth — and more may follow — after a crackling sunspot appeared on the sun’s surface this week.

Our star has seen increased activity in 2022 after firing its strongest solar flare in five years in April.

It appears to be moving into a particularly active phase of its 11-year cycle of activity, which began in 2019 and is expected to peak in 2025.

One of the most recent solar flares caused a brief radio outage over the Atlantic when it struck Earth at 14:42 GMT (09:42 ET) yesterday (Wednesday), according to SpaceWeather.com.

Sun Burp: At least eight solar flares have been unleashed toward Earth — and more may follow — after a crackling sunspot appeared on the sun’s surface this week. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft captured this image of a solar flare erupting yesterday

Solar flares — bursts of electromagnetic radiation traveling at the speed of light — typically reach our planet within eight minutes of exiting the sun’s atmosphere.

The strongest category is X-flares, followed by M-class flares, which were most of the new ones.

So much was the excitement about Wednesday’s activity that some pundits took to Twitter.

“THREE MORE M FLARES: An M6, M3 and M2, all from AR3165,” said solar physicist Keith Strong.

“That makes 8 million flares so far today. They seem to be getting bigger, is there an X-flare coming up? Stay tuned.’

AR3165, which Mr. Strong tweeted about, is a sunspot – a dark region of the Sun that’s cooler than other parts of the surface – that has recently appeared on our star’s visible disk.

Solar flares form near these dark areas of the star and release energy.

They are sometimes associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which tend to disrupt technology more on Earth, but so far there’s no evidence this new activity involves any CMEs.

These mass ejections are typically much slower than solar flares because they move a larger amount of matter, but they only affect our planet when directed in its direction.

CMEs can be triggered when a storm on the Sun’s surface causes a whirlwind to form at the base of plasma loops protruding from the surface.

These loops are called prominences, and if they become unstable, they can break and release the CME into space.

Flares and CMEs also have different effects on Earth. Flare energy can disrupt the region of the atmosphere through which radio waves propagate, causing temporary blackouts in navigation and communications signals.

On the other hand, CMEs have the power to disrupt the Earth’s magnetic fields and create currents that drive particles down towards the Earth’s poles.

When these react with oxygen and nitrogen, they help create the aurora, also known as the Northern and Southern Lights.

One of the most recent solar flares caused a brief radio outage over the Atlantic when it struck Earth at 14:42 GMT (09:42 ET) yesterday (Wednesday), according to SpaceWeather.com

AR3165 is a sunspot – a dark region of the Sun that is cooler than other parts of the surface – that has recently appeared on our star’s visible disk. Solar flares form near these dark areas of the star and release energy

Solar flares — bursts of electromagnetic radiation traveling at the speed of light — typically reach our planet within eight minutes of exiting the sun’s atmosphere. Pictured is an image taken by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft

In addition, the magnetic changes can affect a variety of human technologies, causing GPS coordinates to differ by a few meters and overloading power grids if utility companies are not prepared.

In the modern world there has not been an extreme CME or solar flare – the most recent being the Carrington event in 1859 – that produced a geomagnetic storm with a worldwide appearing aurora and fires in telegraph stations.

April’s eruption—the strongest this solar cycle—did no damage to Earth, nor did it affect our satellites and power grid.

However, scientists worry that the Sun’s increased activity could lead to potentially dangerous solar weather that could damage power grids, knock out satellites, and damage astronauts and space equipment on the International Space Station.

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SOLAR STORMS ARE A SIGNIFICANT HAZARD TO ASTRONAUTS AND CAN DAMAGE SATELLITES

solar stormsor solar activity, can be divided into four main components which can have an impact on the earth:

• solar flares: A large explosion in the Sun’s atmosphere. These flares consist of photons that emanate directly from the flare location. Solar flares only hit Earth when they occur on the Earth-facing side of the Sun.
• Coronary Mass Ejections (CMEs): Large plasma clouds and magnetic fields erupting from the Sun. These clouds can erupt in any direction and then move on in that direction, plowing through the solar wind. These clouds only cause effects on the earth when they are directed towards the earth.
• High-velocity solar wind streams: These originate from coronal holes on the Sun that form all over the Sun, and normally the winds only hit the Earth when they are closer to the Sun’s equator.
• solar energy particles: High-energy charged particles thought to be released primarily by tremors forming at the front of coronal mass ejections and solar flares. When a CME cloud plows through the solar wind, solar energetic particles can be created, and because they are charged, they follow the magnetic field lines between the Sun and Earth. Only charged particles that follow magnetic field lines that intersect the earth will have an effect.

Although these may seem dangerous, due to the relatively low orbits of manned missions, astronauts are not immediately threatened by these phenomena.

However, you do need to worry about cumulative exposure during spacewalks.

This photo shows the Sun’s coronal holes in an X-ray image. The Sun’s outer atmosphere, the corona, is structured by powerful magnetic fields that, when closed, can cause the atmosphere to suddenly and violently release bubbles, or tongues, of gas and magnetic fields called coronal mass ejections

The damage from solar storms

Solar flares can damage satellites and cause huge financial costs.

The charged particles can also threaten airlines by disrupting Earth’s magnetic field.

Very large flares can even create currents within power grids and turn off the power supply.

When coronal mass ejections hit Earth, they cause geomagnetic storms and enhanced auroras.

They can interfere with radio waves and GPS coordinates and overload electrical systems.

A large influx of energy could flow into high-voltage grids and permanently damage transformers.

This could shut down businesses and homes around the world.

Source: NASA – Solar Storm and Space Weather