The sun has released a powerful solar flare, the strongest in this 11-year cycle, and it’s headed towards Earth. While it’s not as large as the historic Carrington Event of 1859, it will provide an amazing aurora display for those living far enough from the equator. This blog post explores the science behind solar flares, their categorization, and the potential impacts on our electrical infrastructure and natural light shows. Solar flares and auroras are fascinating natural phenomena worth understanding.
The Sun’s Cyclical Activity
The sun cycles between a minimum of quiet activity and a maximum, with the latter anticipated to be near now. More sunspots and solar flares show up at this time. Although in the past astronomers could only count the number of sunspots, modern observatories such as the Solar Dynamics Observatory give us real time video footage of solar eruptions.
Solar flares fall into three categories based on how powerful they are: X-class, M-class, and C-class. All in all, each category is twice more powerful than the previous one and the most recent flare is X9 that makes it much stronger than most of solar flares but still not as strong as an X45 Carrington Event happened on 1859
Impacts on Earth and Auroras
So, while the X9.0 flare is nothing to sneeze at, it’s not necessarily a “lights-out” doomsday scenario as with the 1989 event that triggered a large power outage in Quebec. The flare will release charged particles, which are caught by the Earth’s magnetosphere only to collide with our atmosphere in the polar regions along field lines.
This effect will generate the amazing displays of light called, auroras. The image shows an aurorae borealis display on Earth, which (as long as you live far enough from the equator) will likely become visible in the coming days. To see the auroras depends on a number of factors which you can check out by heading to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Centre.
Solar Flares: Science & History
Solar flares are caused when energy stored in twisted magnetic fields is suddenly released, accelerating charged particles to velocities that approach the speed of light. Although it was the largest solar flare ever recorded, the Carrington Event happened in 1859 — far earlier days before our technological capabilities and understanding of space weather.
Today, we have the ability not only to classification solar flares but also to forecast and issue warnings about their effect on Earth. Given this fact, the better we get at understanding and predicting these massive solar events (hence increased scientific research and technological capabilities) the more we will be able to predict such impacts in the future. The activity of the sun might be awe inspiring and inspires it, but it’s a reminder that our own solar system is an incredibly dynamic place.
