In a statement, the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned of this particular situation, about which more details will be provided in the coming hours.
Geomagnetic storms, according to the statement, can affect Earth’s orbital infrastructure and the Earth’s surface, interfering with communications, the electrical grid, navigation and radio and satellite operations.
The series of eruptions began on May 8 and the conditions for the storm’s persistence could last until the weekend.
“A large sunspot has been producing moderate to very strong flares since Wednesday,” the agency said, adding that “at least five of these flares have been associated with solar coronal mass ejections that appear to be directed toward Earth.”
These ejections are explosions of plasma and magnetic fields in the solar corona that cause geomagnetic storms when they occur toward Earth, NOAA explained.
The large sunspot launched an astonishing sequence of five solar mass ejections towards Earth, according to the Spacewater.com platform, which estimates that, if it were a hurricane, it would be category 4, the second strongest there is.
