The coronal mass ejection (CME) cloud that was forecast to hit the Earth, mercifully missed it by a narrow margin. But it might be too early to celebrate as new sunspots are already developing on the Sun, which can cause more solar storms. At present, there are three major sunspot groups on the Sun, and among them, two are very concerning. These are AR3270 and AR 3271. AR3270 is the ring-shaped sunspot which grew tenfold in just 24 hours and has two dark cores, both larger than the Earth. These sunspots are very unstable and can soon explode with M or X-class solar flare eruptions.
The development was reported by SpaceWeather.com which mentioned, “New sunspot AR3270 has rapidly grown into a behemoth with two primary dark cores larger than Earth and an unstable delta-class magnetic field. The mixture of magnetic polarities shown in this map is what makes the sunspot dangerous. NOAA forecasters say there is a 15% chance of M-class solar flares and a 5% chance of X-flares in the next 24 hours. Any eruptions will be geoeffective because the sunspot is directly facing Earth”.
One major reason why these sunspots are concerning is because they contain both unstable delta-class magnetic fields and a mixture of magnetic polarities which makes them very volatile. Whenever an area with a positive magnetic charge and a negative magnetic charge overlaps, it leads to a phenomenon called reconnection. This causes a spontaneous combustion that leads to solar flare eruptions.
These eruptions are responsible for radio blackouts and GPS disruptions on Earth. They also release huge amounts of CME from the Sun's surface, which when comes in contact with the upper atmosphere of the Earth, sparks a geomagnetic storm. In extreme cases, these
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