Plasma ejections from the sun could hit Earth today

Maybe you don’t want to capture those rays.

An unusual magnetic storm originating from the Sun could hit Earth on Thursday, causing noticeable damage and disruption.

Called the “wrath of the sun”. Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India (CESSI) tweeted this week about the detection of energy bursts, with a “very high probability of an earth impact” on April 14.

Solar activity is what scientists call a geomagnetic storm that creates a “magnetic discharge.” Coronary mass ejections.

Basically, increased activity on the sun will expel this energy towards our planet, causing power outages and interference to radio signals.

On the bright side, the solar flares create a beautiful light show – called the Aurora Borealis – like the Northern Lights.

“While the storms produce beautiful auroras, they can also disrupt navigational systems such as the Global Navigation Satellite System and create harmful geomagnetically induced currents in the power grid and pipelines,” they said National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Coronary mass ejections are plasma and magnetic fields emitted from the Sun’s corona, the bright halo around the star, into space toward the inner planets.

NASA and NOAA have previously tracked these emissions from the Sun, including some from two weeks ago those were near misses, but this storm is different. While significant damage from coronal mass ejections is rare, this may be the exception.

NOAA says this type of storm is a “major disturbance of the Earth’s magnetosphere that occurs when there is a very efficient exchange of energy from the solar wind into the space environment surrounding Earth.”

Higher elevations are more at risk, according to NOAA, while mid-elevation areas won’t suffer as much damage but could still experience power disruptions.

NASA has also predicted that “fast solar wind currents” could cause the geomagnetic storm to intensify once it hits Earth.

“During storms, the currents in the ionosphere, as well as the energetic particles falling into the ionosphere, add energy in the form of heat, which can increase the density and density distribution in the upper atmosphere, resulting in additional drag for low-flying satellites – earth orbit”, says NOAA.

According to CESSI, these energy emissions from the Sun are due to the bright star approaching its solar maximum, the “period of greatest solar activity during the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle.”