A huge ball of plasma and its magnetic field ejected by the Sun will impact Earth on Thursday morning, potentially triggering northern lightsaccording to American meteorologists.
The phenomenon occurs when the Sun approaches – or possibly is – at the peak of its 11-year cycle, when activity is greatest.
In May, the planet experienced its most powerful geomagnetic storms in two decades, producing colorful spectacles in the night skies far from the poles.
“The current forecast is for it to arrive tomorrow morning until noon Eastern time and perhaps continue into the next day,” Shawn Dahl of the U.S. Space Weather Prediction Center told reporters at a briefing on Wednesday.
As the coronal mass ejection (CME) travels through space at 4 million kilometers per hour, the agency has launched a Level 4 (G4) geomagnetic storm watch.
This is lower than the maximum possible level, G5, observed in May, but the final result could be lower or higher than G4.
Better predictions will not be possible until about 15 to 30 minutes before impact, when it crosses the tracking satellites.
According to Dahl, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), already under pressure from the consequences of Hurricane Helene and the proximity of Hurricane Milton, has been informed, as have the companies that manage the North American electrical grid, so that they can take mitigation measures if necessary.
When CMEs collide with Earth’s magnetosphere, they can create geomagnetic storms.
Storms can disrupt satellites orbiting Earth and affect things like radio signals and GPS positioning systems.
According to experts, the auroras will be most visible away from city lights, in skies as dark as possible, for those who live at the right latitudes, potentially as far south as northern California or Alabama, in the United States.
People should use their cameras or phones to watch, as today’s digital images can often capture them even when the naked eye cannot.