The Sun has a weapon to destroy Earth and it is called the CME storm
The Sun has been increasingly blasting powerful solar storms towards the Earth ever since the beginning of 2022. And this will continue till 2023 when it reaches the peak of its solar maximum phase and that poses a big problem for Earth. While the majority of these storms have been largely harmless, some of them have had devastating consequences for us. Earlier this year, 40 Starlink satellites were destroyed by a solar storm and these days they regularly disrupt shortwave radio transmission and GPS functioning. These solar storms, which cause noticeable damage to Earth, are called CME storms or coronal mass ejection storms. But what are these and how are they different from a regular solar storm? Read on to find out.
The Solar Orbiter is a Sun-observing satellite developed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and is operated by both ESA and NASA. The satellite is equipped with state-of-the-art tech instruments to observe and spot solar storms and CME storms. The satellite contains Solar Wind Plasma Analyser, an instrument which contains a suite of sensors that can measure density, velocity, and temperature of the solar winds. It also contains a magnetometer to measure the magnetic field of a solar storm and a Radio and Plasma Waves (RPW) which determines the characteristics of electromagnetic and electrostatic waves in the solar wind.
A CME storm is simply a solar storm that has been induced by CME particles striking the magnetosphere. There are many ways the Sun can cause a solar storm like effect on Earth. The most common among them are radiation-based solar storms, which occur when a solar flare erupts on the Sun and it sends powerful radiation towards the Earth. These travel the fastest and are notorious for causing
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