G4 is a geomagnetic storm caused by a sudden increase in solar activity. It can cause significant losses and at the same time trigger the aurora borealis that could be observed last weekend.
A powerful geomagnetic storm has reached level G4. There is a message
“Attention, update from our Heliophysics Forecasts Center! The geomagnetic storm has reached level G4 on a five-point scale. There may be problems with power grids. Possible problems with tracking satellites in Earth’s orbit. Auroras may occur throughout Poland,” informed the Space Research Center of the Polish Academy of Sciences. on social media.
A magnetic storm is a sudden disturbance of the Earth’s magnetosphere, which may result in, among other things, failure of energy infrastructure and artificial satellites in orbit. It is created following solar flares, when a highly charged stream of particles from the Sun’s coronal mass ejection (CME) reaches the Earth. The strongest phenomenon of this type was observed in September 1859. Then the storm was so strong that very intense aurora borealis were seen even in the latitudes of Hawaii and Mexico.
The aurora borealis will shine over Poland once again
As we reported earlier in Gazeta.pl, last night the northern lights could be observed over the Polish coast and the north of the country. This was caused by an X1.2 class flare. Enthusiasts of this phenomenon also informed on social media about the possibility of the occurrence of the northern lights throughout Poland. “We are already under the influence of fast and dense solar wind, which allowed the observation of the aurora borealis over Poland last evening. At the current speed, the solar wind stream needs about 44 minutes to reach the Earth after passing DSCOVR. There is a chance that we will find under the influence of at least twice as fast a stream, which will extremely shorten the reaction time of aurora borealis observers” – warned Karol Wójcicki from the website Z poznaj w starch. You can read more about the northern lights and how you can observe the colorful glows in the article: .
Source: Gazeta
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