Science News: A solar flare is directed to Earth

Monday, January 23, 2012

A solar flare is directed to Earth

Image taken by NASA's Solar Observatory.

The Space Weather Observatory reported that at 03:59 on Monday has been a solar explosion classified as M9, almost a flash X, the largest in existence. This is the most powerful storm in recent months. The images have been captured by NASA's Solar Observatory (Solar Dynamics Observatory).

The Sun is very active at an early stage. The greatest risk of these solar storms is the possibility of affecting the communications systems on Earth.

Image via Wikipedia

From the Observatory have underlined that this situation falls "within what couldhappen with normal" given the current active time of the sun, and that "we can not conclude you have not any danger," though, of course, in the case of a flare as similated X, is a phenomenon with the potential to cause new solar storms greater than those of this weekend and should be followed closely.

Effects on Earth

The origin of this flare is the sunspot 1402. Specifically, observation satellites have caught a coronal mass ejection coming from this spot toward Earth. The explosion was detectable, within minutes of each in Australia, New Zealand, China and India, in the form of ionization.

Now we study the types of impact could have this ejection when it comes to Earth, if it could be directly or partially. In this sense, the Space Weather Observatory has suggested that the magnetosphere of the planet is currently in the process of recovery from the solar flare of class M3.2, which took place on January 19 and thatimpact on the planet the past Sunday.

The magnetosphere also has to face now with this new blaze, which nearly triples the previous one and that would impact his extraordinary speed to Earth on Tuesday January 24 or Wednesday 25.