Eruptions From Sun Likely To Hit Earth Today, Trigger Geomagnetic Storms

A fresh eruption from Sun is likely to hit Earth on Wednesday and Thursday that would trigger a geomagnetic storm, scientists said.

New Delhi: A fresh eruption from Sun is likely to hit Earth on Wednesday and Thursday that would trigger a geomagnetic storm, scientists said. This comes a week after Earth was hit by a moderate geomagnetic storm.

The Center of Excellence in Space Sciences (CESS) under the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research said a couple of solar active regions are “being flagged by the CESSI algorithm to be potentially flare productive”. “The impact is unlikely to be very hazardous. Moderate geomagnetic storms are likely,” the CESS said in a tweet.

In a series of tweets, the CESS said,”CESSI SPACE WEATHER BULLETIN//07 FEB 2022//SUMMARY: NOMINAL SPACE WEATHER// A filament eruption was observed on the Sun south of disk center on 06 FEB. SOHO LASCO detected a partial halo CME being launched soon thereafter.”

“Our DBM model fit indicates very high probability of Earth impact with modern speed in the range 451-615 km/s with arrival time uncertainty ranging from 9 FEB 05:48 UT to 10 FEB 09:53 UT. The impact is unlikely to be very hazardous. Moderate geomagnetic storms are likely.”

//CESSI SPACE WEATHER BULLETIN//07 FEB 2022//SUMMARY: NOMINAL SPACE WEATHER// A filament eruption was observed on the Sun south of disk center on 06 FEB. SOHO LASCO detected a partial halo CME being launched soon thereafter.
+ pic.twitter.com/0o5Z0QjSRH

— Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India (@cessi_iiserkol) February 7, 2022

Last year in May, NASA and European Space Agency’s Sun-watching spacecraft had captured the first solar eruption. The CME was captured by NASA instrument, the Solar Orbiter Heliospheric Imager (SoloHI) onboard the spacecraft.

SoloHI watches the solar wind, dust, and cosmic rays that fill the space between the Sun and the planets. It used one of its four detectors at less than 15 per cent of its normal cadence to reduce the amount of data acquired. The view captured is brief and grainy, but shows a sudden blast of particles, the CME, escaping the Sun, which is off camera to the upper right.

The CME starts about halfway through the video as a bright burst — the dense leading edge of the CME — and drifts off screen to the left.

At the time the eruption reached the spacecraft, Solar Orbiter had just passed behind the Sun from Earth’s perspective and was coming back around the other side.