Over the past one week, a solar storm targeted the Earth atmosphere with a potentially high intensity. While any catastrophe due to the solar storm has been avoided, a warning issued on the matter by scientists stated that this could have occurred due to a ‘coronal hole’ — which may have caused potential interference in global communication infrastructure as well.
How the Solar Storm May Have Impacted Earth
Solar storms are fairly regular affairs, although they potentially vary by intensity. Such storms occur due to disturbances on the surface of the Sun, which could be caused due to turbulent reactions on the solar surface. Such reactions discharge solar particles, or ions, through the solar system. Once released, they travel at rapid velocity, and interact with planet atmospheres.
On Earth, such storms typically end up showing as a phenomenon that is commonly known as Aurora Borealis — where the interaction of solar ions with the Earth atmosphere leads to the formation of lights of various wavelengths on the night sky. Such reactions, however, are typically seen due to contained solar storms that occur from light reactions on the solar surface.
The solar storm that was projected to occur on Saturday, September 4 was due to a particularly strong reaction from a coronal hole — a point of high turbulence on the solar surface. However, the activity was not strong enough to have interfered with satellite and connectivity service operators. Very strong solar turbulences, for reference, can potentially interfere with global connectivity and power infrastructure.
Thankfully, no violent reactions were reported due to the high velocity solar storm that occurred on Saturday, and no damages were caused as a result. According to reports, such solar storms could increase in frequency as activity on the Sun’s surface builds up to higher levels. More such storms are expected next year, which could cause high impact storms on Earth’s infrastructure.
Scientists have stated that the build-up of such activity could see more such storms occur in 2023, and it remains to be seen how infrastructure on Earth could be guarded from such natural occurrences.
