Currently, the most powerful solar storm is rampaging around the world.
Caused by the impact of coronal mass ejection (CME) on the magnetosphere of our planet, the storm broke at 12:30 Eastern Standard Time and has since grown into a geomagnetic storm of class G4.
On Sunday, the ejection of coronal mass reached Earth faster than expected. We saw a surge in solar activity in recent days, which led to the first outbreak of the X-Class 2015 last week. But the impact of this CME on space weather has taken scientists by surprise.
Wrapped in a powerful magnetic field, the CME consists of a huge bubble of intense gas formed in the solar corona (solar atmosphere). The speed with which CME travels in interplanetary space and the strength of its magnetic field can seriously affect the Earth’s magnetic field. Today’s storm is so intense that it overshadows everything that happened before in the current cycle of our Sun. Approximately every 11 years, the Sun arrives and decreases in magnetic activity. So when the Sun arrives at its maximum, flares and coronal mass ejections become commonplace. Although the activity of the Sun is currently decreasing, this event once again proves that the Sun is still capable of causing such cataclysms.
The storm continues, and space weather experts will continue to monitor developments.
