Artist’s concept of activity on the sun traveling across space, to interact with Earth’s magnetic field. Not to scale. The sun’s activity can cause a geomagnetic storm, which aren’t harmful to humans, but which can harm earthly technologies. Image via Wikimedia Commons.What happens during a geomagnetic storm?| EarthSky
View full size. | World map of time zones. UTC (0) is the green vertical stripe just to the left of center. Image via TimeZonesBoy/ CIA/ Wikimedia.Time zones| EarthSky
On New Year’s Eve 2023, the sun blasted a huge X flare, the biggest of solar cycle 25 so far. It came from sunspot region AR3536 and measured X5 on the solar flare intensity scale. The eruption produced a wave that rippled across the sun’s face in all directions. It produced a coronal mass ejection, or CME, a great clump of superheated matter that left the sun and traveled outward into our solar system. | EarthSky
Solar flares are large eruptions of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun lasting from minutes to hours. The sudden outburst of electromagnetic energy travels at the speed of light, therefore any effect upon the sunlit side of Earth’s exposed outer atmosphere occurs at the same time the event is observed. The increased level of X-ray and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) radiation results in ionization in the lower layers of the ionosphere on the sunlit side of Earth. Under normal conditions, high...| www.swpc.noaa.gov
The NOAA Space Weather Scales were introduced as a way to communicate to the general public the current and future space weather conditions and their possible effects on people and systems. Many of the SWPC products describe the space environment, but few have described the effects that can be experienced as the result of environmental disturbances. These scales are useful to users of our products and those who are interested in space weather effects. The scales describe the environmental dis...| www.swpc.noaa.gov