coronal mass ejection

The Earth will be tormented by a powerful solar storm today, November 22. The incoming solar disturbance has been caused by a coronal mass ejection (CME) spewed out by the Sun. In the last couple of weeks, the onslaught of solar storms has increased multifold. Every other day, the Earth is struck by a solar storm with a varying degree of intensity that is causing all sorts of troubles for us including, GPS disruption, radiowave blackouts and more. And it is not likely to stop anytime soon. Today, November 22, a…

A huge blast was spotted coming out from the farside of the Sun. This blast site will face the Earth in about a week. Can it send a dangerous solar storm to Earth? Just a couple of days ago, the Earth suffered the Halloween-day solar storm attack from our Sun that appeared to have a scary smiley plastered on it face due to some dark spots emerging suddenly on its surface. These dark spots (also known as sunspots) are sites with extremely high magnetic fields which get destabilized and explode. This is how the coronal…

A powerful and dangerous strong solar storm on Earth can have stunning consequences for mobile phone users and even the amazing iPhone 14 is not safe. The Sun and its magnetized plasma that it ejects at unimaginable speeds are still being studied. There is a lot we do not know about these particles we call coronal mass ejections or CME. We do know that they are extremely dangerous and destructive in nature to us. We do not know how they are formed or what causes their randomness. When these CME particles are shot out…

A new analysis of six spikes in Earth’s historic radiation levels indicates the events may not be due to typical solar flares, as previously thought.A team of researchers looked at a trove of data—comprising thousands of years and recorded in radiocarbon levels in tree rings—that suggested that the events could be chalked up to some unknown type of cosmic storm. The team’s research is published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A.Whatever their origins, the energetic spikes in Earth’s radiation levels are due to extreme…

Artist’s depiction of Solar Orbiter.Illustration: ESA/ATG medialabSolar Orbiter has been traveling through space for more than two years, making several close flybys of Venus as it steadily inches closer to the Sun. On September 4, the small spacecraft was in the midst of its most recent gravitational assist when it felt the violent wrath of our host star.The Sun fired off a gigantic coronal mass ejection on August 30, reaching the spacecraft just a few days later. Thankfully, Solar Orbiter is built to withstand these…

Northern Lights seen from the coast of Scotland in February, 2021.Photo: Peter Summers (Getty Images)If you happen to live on the northern end of the U.S., and you’re not completely engulfed by ambient light pollution, you might be in for a once-in-a-lifetime celestial light show, though a lot of things have to happen to make the aurora borealis, often called the Northern Lights, appear overhead.This disturbance in the night sky is being called by a coronal mass ejection, otherwise known as a CME. These range in severity…

To date, however, American utility companies haven’t widely deployed current-blocking devices to the live grid. “They’ve only done things, like moving to higher and higher operating voltages”—for cheaper transmission—“that greatly magnify their vulnerability to these storms,” Kappenman tells me.Tom Berger, former director of the US government’s Space Weather Prediction Center, also expressed doubts about grid operators. “When I talk to them, they tell me they understand space weather, and they’re ready,” he says. But…