A ‘cannibal storm’ from the sun triggered auroras. Another round is on its way

Dazzling auroras delighted sky-gazers Tuesday night, even in southern US states such as Florida where they rarely make an appearance — and more colorful displays are expected again Wednesday as solar storms unleashed by the sun continue to reach Earth.

Strong geomagnetic storm conditions — triggered by intense solar flares — are ongoing, the National Weather Service’s Space Weather Prediction Center has reported. Currently classified as G3 on a scale from 1 to 5 to indicate severity, the event could reach severe, or G4, conditions with a chance of more extreme solar weather, according to the center. A G4 is also predicted for Thursday, and the northern tier of the US could see auroras tomorrow evening as well, said Shawn Dahl, forecaster at the center.

In addition to creating auroral displays, geomagnetic storms can disrupt communications, the power grid and satellite operations. The Space Weather Prediction Center said it notified power grid and satellite operators in the US so they can prepare. Meanwhile, operators in the United Kingdom are closely monitoring solar activity as well in case of potential impacts.

“Our data suggests that this event could be one of the biggest storms we’ve seen in 20 years,” said Dr. Gemma Richardson, hazard specialist at the British Geological Survey.

The British Geological Survey believes the current solar activity could lead to a G5, or an extreme geomagnetic storm — the highest level. The survey also dubbed Tuesday’s event a “cannibal storm” that disrupted communications and GPS satellite accuracy.

“On Monday, two Coronal Mass Ejections lifted off the sun a few hours apart,” the survey’s geomagnetism team explained in an email. “The first one was moving more slowly than the second … and so the second one caught up with the first one and they amalgamated together by the time they reached Earth. Hence, the term ‘cannibalised’, as the second one gobbled up the first one.”

Solar storm disruptions

Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, are large clouds of ionized gas called plasma and magnetic fields that erupt from the sun’s outer atmosphere. When these outbursts are directed at Earth, they can cause major disturbances of Earth’s magnetic field, resulting in geomagnetic storms.

Among those feeling the storm’s effects is Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. The company was expected to launch NASA’s Escapade mission — twin satellites set to head on a long journey to Mars — aboard its New Glenn rocket Wednesday. But the increased solar activity is blocking a launch attempt for now.

“NG-2 Update: New Glenn is ready to launch. However, due to highly elevated solar activity and its potential effects on the ESCAPADE spacecraft, NASA is postponing launch until space weather conditions improve. We are currently assessing opportunities to establish our next launch,” according to a post by Blue Origin on social media platform X.

A flurry of activity around our sun is sparking the storms. Three X-class flares, the most intense type of solar flare, have released from the sun this week, followed by a series of coronal mass ejections.

The recent surge in activity stems from an active region of sunspots on the sun called AR 14274, according to Ryan French, a solar physicist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder.

“AR 14274 still has the potential to produce more X-class solar flares,” French said. “However, the region is now rotating away from us, so any eruptions from future flares are increasingly less likely to hit us as the days pass.”

An X-class flare released Tuesday created a large solar particle storm, the largest since 2005, according to the British Geological Survey. Tuesday’s solar activity also created the largest measured geoelectric field since the survey’s records began in 2012.

Disturbances in Earth’s magnetic field can reach the ground, which triggers electricity in rocks and essentially creates an electric field in the ground. “This is usually tiny on the order of 0.001 Volt per kilometer but during geomagnetic storms it can be much larger,” the survey team noted.

On Tuesday, experts documented a value of 3.5 volts per kilometer in the Shetland Islands off the coast of Scotland, an unusually large number that “has not been recorded before,” according to the geological survey’s team.

Large geoelectric fields can interfere with transformers and may even cause them to shut down or overheat.

A changing solar cycle

The sun has an 11-year cycle of waxing and waning activity. Heliophysicists believe the peak, called solar maximum, occurred in October 2024.

“Although we are still in a period of heightened solar activity, we are entering the decay phase of the solar cycle,” French said. “(Although) sunspots and solar flares are fewer during this time, this is the period where the strongest solar flares typically occur.”

Increased solar activity causes auroras that dance around Earth’s poles, known as the northern lights, or aurora borealis, and southern lights, or aurora australis. When the energized particles from coronal mass ejections reach Earth’s magnetic field, they interact with gases in the atmosphere to create different colored lights in the sky.

Forecasters at the Space Weather Prediction Center believe that the arrivals of the first two of three anticipated coronal mass ejections caused Tuesday evening’s auroral display.

“One of them packed a much stronger punch than we would have imagined originally,” Dahl said.

When the storms reach satellites stationed 1 million miles from Earth, forecasters can measure its speed, the strength of the magnetic field and the magnetic orientation, he said.

“Is it pointed opposite Earth, or is it pointed the same as Earth?” Dahl said. “If it turns opposite Earth, then activity really quickly escalates, and those storm levels can dramatically increase very quickly. That’s what happened last night.”

The third solar storm is arriving at Earth Wednesday afternoon, likely triggering more aurora activity that will be visible across the country this evening. And even if the colorful displays don’t seem apparent to the naked eye, sensors in cameras and cell phone cameras can pick them up.

For those in areas with clear dark skies, keep an eye out for auroras, which could dip far south over the US again. In the UK, sky-gazers in Scotland, northern England and Northern Ireland have a good chance of seeing them as well, according to the survey.

The last G5 storm to hit Earth occurred in May 2024.

The storm was a historic one, but fortunately it didn’t reach the level of the Carrington Event of 1859, which caused telegraph stations to spark and catch fire and remains the most intense geomagnetic storm ever recorded.

During the May 2024 geomagnetic storm, tractor company John Deere reported that some customers reliant on GPS for precision farming experienced a disruption. But for the most part, power grid and satellite operators kept satellites in order and properly in orbit and managed the buildup of intense geomagnetic currents on the grid systems.

Before May 2024, the last G5 storm to hit Earth occurred in 2003, resulting in power outages in Sweden and damaging power transformers in South Africa.

The recent outburst of activity reminds French of a severe geomagnetic storm that reached Earth in October 2024. Tuesday night’s storm clocked in as third strongest solar storm of the current solar cycle, French said.

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