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Source: The post is based on the article “Powerful sun storm knocks out radio transmissions across North America” published on Space.com on 8th August 2023.
What is the News?
A powerful solar flare disrupted radio and navigation signals across North America.
What are Solar Flares?
Solar flares are energetic flashes of radiation that explode from magnetically dense, cool regions on the sun’s surface known as sunspots.
Traveling at the speed of light, the photons from these flares arrive at our planet in eight minutes.
As the radiation from the flares interacts with particles in Earth’s ionosphere, the region of the atmosphere at altitudes between 50 and 400 miles (80 and 650 kilometers), it supercharges them. These changes then affect radio and satellite signals that pass through this region.
What are Geomagnetic Storms?
A geomagnetic storm refers to the disruptions to the Earth’s magnetic field caused by solar emissions.
When a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) or a high-speed solar stream reaches our planet, it slams into the magnetosphere. The Earth’s magnetosphere is created by our magnetic fields and it usually protects us from the particles emitted by the Sun.
When a CME or a high-speed stream arrives at Earth, it peels open the planet’s magnetosphere, kind of like an onion. This allows energetic solar wind particles to stream down and hit our atmosphere over the poles.
Solar weather events like this can also supercharge auroras, sometimes making them visible in places where they wouldn’t have been otherwise.
