One of the largest solar storms in five years is about to hit Earth with possible devastating effects on communications, GPS and satellites. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Centre, it could cause havoc with power grids and aircraft flights.
“Space weather has gotten very interesting over the past 24 hours,” Joseph Kunches, NOAA space weather scientist, said.
According to the NOAA, the sun started to erupt on Tuesday evening as it continues to grow in size. The storm is predicted to hit Earth late on Thursday morning, close to 5am.
“The magnetic storm has the potential to trip electrical power grids. Its radio emissions can disrupt global positioning systems to make them less accurate. It also could damage satellites. Scientists said communication problems and radiation from the storm will probably force aircraft to avoid flying over the north and south poles,” News24 wrote.
Kunches said the storm’s intensity will be the same as the solar storm that hit Earth in 2006.
“But en masse, if you put it all together with the geomagnetic effects and the solar radiation effects, I would put it on par with one at the end of the last solar cycle which was over five years ago.”
“We have been talking to the commercial airlines and we know that some have already taken actions to reroute, to go further away from the poles,” Kunches added.
Charlie Fripp — Online editor
