NASA: A dangerous solar storm is headed towards the Earth; blackouts feared

tech.hindustantimes.com:

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) spotted a strong solar flare being fired out from the surface of the Sun. The solar flare was fired in the sunspot named AR3006. The sunspot has been labeled as ‘mixed up’ because its polarity is the reverse of what the scientists were expecting. According to them, this makes this sunspot both exciting and dangerous. It is expected that there is a strong likelihood that the resultant solar storm will hit the Earth soon. How dangerous can it be and what are the risks associated with it? Read on to find out.

The solar flare fired by the Sun has been recorded as a X1.5-class event. This makes it the strongest category of solar flare. For the unaware, solar flares are divided into A, B, C, M and X where A is the weakest solar flare whereas X is the strongest. The flare was captured by the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has issued a warning for radio shortwave blackout in the Atlantic Ocean region.

In the last one months, the Earth has been subjected to multiple such strong solar storms that have caused radio blackouts in various parts of the planet. Last time, a similar solar storm caused blackouts in Australia and parts of Asia. The increased solar activity is a result of the Sun moving closer towards the peak of its maximum phase of its solar cycle. Although the Sun will not reach its peak till 2025, the increasing number of sunspots on the solar disk have already started to create trouble for Earth.

While this particular solar storm is not expected to be a severe one, it is still likely that it will also cause GPS disruption, and distort the navigation systems for airplanes and ships. According to NASA,