NASA Captures Largest Solar Storm in Over 20 Years: What's the Impact?

NASA captured the Sun releasing a powerful X-class solar flare on Sunday, January 18, which it said could not physically affect humans. In an X post, NASA shared a series of images and video of the event from its Solar Dynamics Observatory, and said that the X-class solar flare peaked at 18:09 GMT (11:39 PM IST) on Sunday. This flare, NASA said, is classified as an X1.9 flare. X-class denotes the most intense flares, while the number provides more information about its strength. “The Sun emitted a strong solar flare on Jan. 18, peaking at 1:09 PM ET. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory captured an image of the event, which was classified as X1.9,” it said in the caption. What are solar flares? Are they harmful? The space agency said that solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation, which, when intense enough, can impact radio communications, electric power grids, and navigation signals. “Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground. However — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS & communications signals travel,” NASA said, adding that they pose risks to spacecraft and astronauts. Severe geomagnetic storm alert issued The flare was followed by a coronal mass ejection (CME), a massive release of solar plasma travelling towards Earth. On Monday, the storm began to impact Earth. The US National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) has issued a severe geomagnetic storm alert on January 21 at 1:53 PM IST at level four out of five—the strongest in 23 years, as per Live Science. Activity peaked at 2:38 pm EST on Monday (1:08 AM IST on Tuesday) once the storm reached “severe status” as per the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) in the US. Another SWPC report added that the storm calmed and reached G4 status again on Tuesday. What is a severe geomagnetic storm? A major disturbance in Earth's magnetic field, often varying in intensity between lower levels and severe storm conditions over the course of the entire event, SWPC said in its alert. What should you do? Those under or near the 30-minute predicted auroral extent can look for the aurora if at night, and if weather conditions permit. Possible technology effects Infrastructure operators and authorities have been notified to take action to mitigate any possible impacts and for situational awareness. Possible increased and more frequent voltage control problems - normally mitigable. Increased possibility of anomalies or effects on satellite operations. More frequent and longer periods of GPS degradation are possible, SWPC said. Auroras sightings reported The solar storm was also accompanied by beautiful northern lights as far as Southern California in the United States. Auroras were reportedly spotted in Greenland, Austria, Germany, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada and Croatia. For the US, it was predicted that the auroras would be visible across 24 states. According to the AP report, aurora were visible in Alaska, San Francisco, and Chicago.