Gigantic Solar Eruption

Image of the eruption obtained using the C2 instrument on NASA's SOHO spacecraft. 

(NASA SOHO)

The Sun has been up to some pretty intense shenanigans lately, but a recent eruption on the far side looks to be absolute science gold.

On the evening of September 5 GMT, an enormous coronal mass ejection (CME) was recorded exploding on the far side of the Sun, sending a radiation storm out across the Solar System. It was a type known as a halo CME, in which an expanding halo of hot gas can be seen spewing out around the entire Sun.

Sometimes this means that the CME is headed straight for Earth. However, this eruption was on the far side, so it's heading away, and we won't see any of the usual effects of a solar storm here on our home planet.

But Venus was right in the path of the oncoming storm – and with it, Solar Orbiter, a space probe jointly run by the European Space Agency and NASA that is currently near Venus after a September 4 gravity assist on its mission to take closeup observations of our home star.

This has given us the rare opportunity to observe and measure a gigantic, farside CME, something that is usually rather difficult for us to do.

"This is no run-of-the-mill event. Many science papers will be studying this for years to come," solar physicist George Ho of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory told Spaceweather.  READ MORE...

A Crack in the Earth's Magnetic Field

On Thursday, a crack opened in Earth’s magnetic field and stayed open for nearly 14 hours, allowing Vecna and his minions through from the Upside Down. OK, perhaps not that last bit, but it did allow some powerful solar winds to pour through the hole, creating a geomagnetic storm that sparked some pretty epic aurora.

The crack in the magnet field was created by a rare phenomenon called a co-rotating interaction region (CIR) from the Sun. CIRs are large-scale plasma structures generated in the low and mid-latitude regions of the heliosphere – the region surrounding the Sun that includes the solar magnetic field and the solar winds – when fast and slow-moving streams of solar wind interact.

Like coronal mass ejections (CMEs), CIRs get flung out from the Sun towards Earth and can contain shockwaves and compressed magnetic fields that cause stormy space weather, which usually presents itself to us as pretty aurorae.

This one hit Earth’s magnetic field in the early hours of July 7 and caused a long-lasting G1-class geomagnetic storm. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) analysts suspect a CME was embedded in the solar wind ahead of the CIR, Spaceweather.com reports.

Don't worry, cracks in Earth's magnetic field are normal. The magnetic field acts as a shield to protect us from solar storms spat out by the Sun. It was thought they opened and closed relatively quickly but now we know they can stay open for hours.  READ MORE...

Previous Solar Flares - Geomagnetic Storms

When a solar flare hits the Earth's magnetic field, it can result in a solar storm that affects the power grid and radio communication.

Experts at SpaceWeather.com stated: "A beautiful solar flare (M4-class) on April 29th hurled a CME into space. It might sideswipe Earth today.

"The glancing blow, if it occurs, could spark a minor G1-class geomagnetic storm on May 2nd or 3rd."

A CME stands for coronal mass ejection, a type of solar flare.

It's essentially a huge expulsion of plasma from the Sun's outer layer, called the corona.

This mass ejection of particles from the Sun travels through space and the Earth uses its magnetic field to protect us from damaging radiation.

Each solar storm that hits Earth is graded by severity and this one is only expected to be a "G1 minor".

This means it could cause weak power grid fluctuations and have a small impact on satellite communications.

Fortunately, solar storms aren't thought to be dangerous to humans on Earth.  READ MORE...