MOSCOW, 31 Jan, Vladislav Strekopytov. Reports of a radiation storm that hit the Earth after a solar flare turned out to be greatly exaggerated. The cosmic storm bypassed the planet, only lightly touching its magnetosphere.
Strong, but not extreme
On Monday, January 29, the heliogeophysical service of the Institute of Applied Geophysics (FGBU «IPG» «) informed that a flare of intensity M6.8 occurred on the Sun, which was accompanied by a burst of radio emission of spectral type II and a coronal mass ejection, partially directed towards the Earth.
Depending on the peak intensity of X-ray radiation, solar flares are assigned a class, designated by Latin letters — A, B, C, M or X. Class M flares are considered strong, but not extreme.
The most powerful flare of the current 25th cycle of solar activity, which began in December 2019, was on New Year's Eve 2023 — X5.0. The reason, as scientists explained, is the accumulation of magnetic and electrical energy in the solar corona. Three weeks earlier, on December 14, the previous record was registered — X2.2.
The current outbreak is not so strong, differing from others only in its duration of 81 minutes. During this time, a huge amount of energy and matter was thrown into space — magnetic solar plasma.
Complete calm
Flows of solar energy and matter cause polar lights and magnetic storms on Earth, from which weather-dependent people suffer. But especially dangerous are high-energy charged particles, or, as geophysicists say, energetic protons. An increase in their concentration in the atmosphere creates strong interference in the short radio wave range. This can disrupt the operation of navigation systems and cause communication failures on Earth and with satellites in orbit. Such an event is called a radiation storm.
The message from scientists that the emission from the flare that occurred on January 29 will reach the Earth on January 31 or February 1 caused a strong reaction in the media. However, there are currently no signs of a solar storm.
Geophysicists monitor three main parameters of space weather: disturbances in the Earth's magnetic field, the level of background radiation (fluxes of energetic solar protons) and the effect of X-ray bursts on the ionosphere. All three indicators are currently at the “calm” mark — this is a conditional zero on a five-point scale. On Tuesday, January 30, the background radiation was indeed somewhat elevated, reaching S2 on a five-point scale (from S1 to S5), then quickly normalizing.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) states: «There are no biological consequences. There may be isolated cases of deterioration of radio waves at high frequencies in the polar zone and errors in navigation systems.»
Today everything is calm in space — no flares on the Sun, the solar wind is weak, the magnetosphere is not disturbed, the streams of energetic charged particles that should have caused a radiation storm are below the detection limit.
The storm passed by
Scientists immediately said that most of the coronal mass ejection from the flare on January 29 will fly past the Earth, only a glancing blow to the magnetosphere is likely.
«If this happens, then individual outraged people are possible periods or periods of a minor magnetic storm,” say experts from the Center for Space Weather Forecasts at the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation named after N.V. Pushkov RAS (IZMIRAN).
The most dangerous are flares on the surface of the Sun directly opposite the Earth. This time there was a large deviation, so the impact is minimal.
Свежие комментарии