A dense stream of solar wind enveloped the Earth late on Wednesday. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) informed that but no notable impact was observed as the event wasn’t particularly powerful on the space weather scale.
According to the American agency, the storm passed through the Earth at 16:41 UTC (22:11 IST) with a geomagnetic K-index of 4 and the phenomenon lasted for a few hours and slightly unsettled the planet's magnetic field. The K-index is used to characterise the magnitude of geomagnetic storms, and a level of 4 indicates minor disturbance.
NOAA further stated that weak power grid fluctuations occurred due to the solar storm, and expected auroras to be visible at high latitudes such as Canada and Alaska. But, there have not come any reports of such sightings from the local US media.
As mentioned in the report, the geomagnetic waves unleashed by solar storms are invisible and harmless to anyone on the Earth’s surface. However, they can cripple power grids, jam radio communications, bathe airline crews in dangerous levels of radiation and knock critical satellites off kilter.
Space weather experts say when the storm leaves the Sun, it passes through the corona and into the solar wind. After it reaches Earth, it energises the planet's magnetosphere and accelerates electrons and protons down to Earth’s magnetic field lines where they collide with the atmosphere and ionosphere, particularly at high latitudes. Each component of space weather impacts a different technology.
Spaceweather.com writes, 'A dense and strongly magnetized stream of solar wind enveloped Earth for a few hours on July 14th, unsettling our planet's magnetic field (Kp=4). So far, no auroras have been reported, probably because of northern summer sunlight. Quiet conditions are expected to resume on July 15th'.
Previously, a solar storm caused ham radios to turn to static just as the Category 5 Hurricane Irma was ripping through the Caribbean in 2017.
Earlier to that in 2015, solar storms had knocked out global positioning systems in the US Northeast. Similarly, a solar storm had caused a province-wide outage over Quebec, which had lasted for nine hours in March 1989.
