Earth has just suffered a solar storm. The resulting radiation caused a shortwave radio blackout in South America.
Since the beginning of 2023, the Earth has been the target of vicious solar activity. After suffering a solar storm on New Year’s Day, Earth also fell victim to another eruption in the first week of January. But now, the Sun has blown away the Earth with an even stronger solar flare. According to NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), an X1.9-class solar flare erupted on January 10 at 12:20 am. The resulting radiation caused shortwave radio blackouts in parts of South America. And the worst part? Read on for more information.
The thing is report by SpaceWeather.com on its website, where it notes, “Satellites orbiting Earth have just detected a solar flare of magnitude X1.9 (January 9 @ 1850 UT). The source is hyperactive sunspot AR3184, currently emerging over the sun’s southeastern edge….The radiation ionized the top part of Earth’s atmosphere, causing a shortwave radio blackout. concentrated on the Pacific side of South America”. But it got worse. Although it is currently unclear, solar debris (in the form of coronal mass ejections) may have been lifted off the surface of the Sun. Sun and it can cause another Sun storm in the coming days.
Dangerous solar sparks attack The earth
According to NASA SDO, the majority of solar flares hit South America and parts of the United States. If you’re wondering why these days the sun’s rays are aimed at the Southern Hemisphere, it’s because the Southern Hemisphere is currently experiencing summer and leaning toward the Sun. That is why any radiation coming from the Sun affects mainly the southern half of the Earth. Australia, which was the focus of the previous competition solar flame eruption, there was no radio blackout because it was in the nighttime region and did not face the Sun directly.
This outage will directly affect ham radio operators, airlines as well as any individual or organization that uses radio frequencies for communication, such as emergency services. . Although the impact of this particular sun flare is limited to this, a very strong flare can have dangerous consequences. They are powerful enough to not only disrupt GPS, wireless communications, and radio waves, but also damage power grids and sensitive electronics such as pacemakers and supercomputers.
And when things settle down, Earth could soon be hit by an onslaught of the Sun. SpaceWeather.com revealed in a separate post, “The Sun currently has two large, unstable sunspots capable of producing very powerful outbursts: AR3182 and AR3184. Both are facing Earth, increasing the likelihood of localized outbreaks this week.”
