The skies at the beginning of October may hold a more dramatic scenario than predicted by space weather experts hours earlier, after the sun experienced a new explosion on the morning of September 30, at a time when a cloud of plasma ejected two days earlier was already heading towards Earth.
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Extreme ultraviolet images showed a shock wave surging from the explosion site through the sun's atmosphere, while its radio emissions indicated an expansion speed of approximately 520 kilometers per second, strongly suggesting that it ejected a new coronal mass into space.
The significance of this event lies in its timing, as it was preceded on September 28 by a magnetic field explosion that triggered another coronal mass ejection toward Earth. NASA models predict that the tip of this cloud will reach Earth on October 2, potentially causing a weak geomagnetic storm of category G-1 and the appearance of auroras at high latitudes.
Why might the aurora appear further away than the poles?
A coronal mass ejection is a massive cloud of plasma and magnetic fields ejected by the Sun into space. When directed towards Earth, it can collide with the magnetosphere and inject energy, expanding the area through which charged particles fall into the atmosphere.
These particles collide with oxygen and nitrogen atoms, producing the colors of the aurora, which usually remains confined to areas near the poles.
The extreme events near value 9 allowed for observations in more southerly regions. These are magnetic boundaries, not typical geographic latitudes, and are approximate, not a prediction of where the aurora will appear in this particular storm.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirms that spring and autumn are the best times to observe auroras for this reason. However, reaching lower latitudes requires a storm much stronger than the currently predicted G-1 storm.
3 solar influences and a crucial date on October 2nd
The story is not limited to coronal mass ejections; there is an equatorial coronal hole on the sun that is sending a stream of faster solar winds, and its effects are expected to reach Earth between October 2 and 3.
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