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Powerful geomagnetic storm that led to an aurora night on Friday at the highest parts of Europe and the United States and interfered with the operation of Starlink and GPS, will last at least until Sunday. The Space Weather Prediction Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Prediction Center notes that extreme G5 conditions continue as of Saturday morning due to increased solar activity.
“The threat of additional strong flares and coronal mass ejections will remain until the large sunspot cluster fades from view over the next few days,” the agency said.
For many observers on Friday evening, increased solar activity was positive. Large areas that were not used to aurora displays saw bright lights as energetically charged particles from the solar storm passed through the Earth's atmosphere. Given the forecast for prolonged solar activity, the northern lights will be visible again on Saturday.
There were also harmful consequences: according to NOAA, there were some disruptions in power transmission, satellite communications and GPS operation. Starlink internet users are reporting slower download speeds. On Saturday, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said that the company's Starlink satellites are under heavy load, but so far they can handle it.
This is the strongest solar storm recorded in more than two decades. The last G5 event occurred in October 2003, when power problems were reported in Sweden and South Africa. Scientists say if the magnetic storm intensifies over the next day or two, there is a risk of wider power outages, satellite inoperability and long-term damage to GPS networks.
Such storms occur when the Sun ejects a significant amount of its magnetic field and plasma in the form of solar wind; the causes of these coronal mass ejections are not fully understood. It is hoped that data collected by NASA's Parker Solar Probe and other observations will help scientists better understand and anticipate such events.
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When coronal mass ejections reach the Earth's magnetic field, they change it and can cause significant currents in power lines and transformers, leading to damage or blackouts. The most powerful geomagnetic storm occurred in 1859 during the so-called Carrington event. The aurora was observed all over the world, and a magnetic storm caused fires in many telegraph stations – at that time there were 125,000 miles of telegraph lines in the world. Fortunately, there were relatively few electrical appliances in the world at that time.
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