Over the past few months, sunspot activity on the surface of the sun has been extremely active, with various solar storms taking place. One sunspot, in particular, known as AR2975 has been erupting since Monday.
Due to this activity, there have been at least 17 solar eruptions coming from AR2975, which have been making their way toward Earth. When sunspots erupt on the surface of the sun, they send plasma and particles into Earth’s atmosphere, which interacts with our magnetic field.
These eruptions are known as coronal mass ejections.
Upon entering into Earth’s atmosphere, the radioactive particles from the CMEs can interfere with our power grid, and satellite systems, and cause aurora lights.
“The eruptions have hurled at least two, possibly three, CMEs toward Earth,” SpaceWeather.com writes about the recent storms.
NASA and the NOAA predict that some of this energy will begin hitting today.
According to prediction models, these storms will likely be a G2 or a G3, which is considered moderate. And while the auroras (Northern and Southern lights) can be difficult to predict, we will likely see some activity coming from these storms.
While it may seem like the sun has been extremely active lately, this is considered to be its quiet time, which indicates that things will likely step up quite a lot during the peak which is expected in the middle of 2025.
Currently, scientists are working to predict just how powerful of a peak it will be.
For now, this particular set of storms is said to be mild, thankfully. If it were a more powerful CME it would have the ability to shut down the global internet or majorly impact our power grid. This one should just provide us with a lovely show in the sky.