Solar Storm Heading Towards Earth At Speed of 1.6 Million kmph, Might Impact Today: At a speed of 1.6 million kmph, a powerful solar storm is coming towards the Earth. This solar flare could disrupt GPS and phone signals. The solar storm is expecting to impact on Monday, can make a major impact on the communication infrastructure.
As per the reports by Spaceweather.com, the storm is originated from the atmosphere of the Sun but full-fledged geomagnetic storms are not likely to happen. However, the high-altitude auroras could happen.
The post on their website reads, “The solar wind is coming: Later today, solar wind with a high-stream is expected to hit Earth’s magnetic field. Wind speeds could top 500 km/s, flowing from an equatorial hole. Lesser geomagnetic unrest could spark high latitude auroras, but full-fledged geomagnetic storms are unlikely. ”
The US Space Weather Prediction Centre has predicted that on a sub-solar point on the Earth’s sunlit side, this solar flare is likely to be centered.
Later predictions say communication disruption and wide-area blackout of HF (high frequency) radio communication can be caused by the powerful flare. It can be up to one hour or more.
In a statement, NASA said, “the solar storm is moving at a speed of 1.6 million km/hr towards the Earth. There are the chances of speed increase also.”
Apart from the communication infrastructure on Earth, the solar flares may affect the upper atmosphere of the satellites. This can cause disruption and interference in the satellite TV, GPS navigation, phone signals. If the current in the power lines is high then the transformers may blow out.
Solar/Geomagnetic Storm
In simple definitions, the solar storm is a disturbance in the Sun, which can emit outward across the heliosphere and affect the total solar system.
A geomagnetic storm is another name of the Solar storm which causes a temperature disturbance in the Earth’s magnetosphere because of the solar wind shock wave.
Solar Flare
A large explosion in the Sun’s atmosphere is called a Solar flare. If the tangling or reorganizing of magnetic field lines happens near sunspots then it will result in a solar flare.
