NASA detects alarming activity on the Sun that could affect Earth in the coming days – Enséñame de Ciencia

Just as strange phenomena occur on the surface of the Earth, a great many rare events can occur on every celestial body in the solar system that attract our attention and can indirectly harm our planet.

In this case, the Sun was the protagonist of an unusual cosmic event that saw multiple solar eruptions that surprised observers and could trigger a solar storm towards Earth in the coming days.

According to the Space Weather website, a solar flare, also known as a solar flare, is a giant explosion on the surface of our Sun that occurs when the magnetic field lines of sunspots become tangled and erupted, causing a sudden, rapid and dramatic change in brightness.

This event occurred in the early morning of April 23 this year when the Sun presented an anomalous and unique phenomenon on the solar surface where four eruptions were simultaneously visualized and recorded on video and the effects of this rare event are expected to affect the Earth in the coming days.

The alarming discovery was reported by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, which observed four eruptions in different regions of the Sun, separated by thousands of kilometers, covering a third of the solar surface and exploding simultaneously.

These rare eruptions, represented by the Sun, began around 1:00 a.m. ET (11:00 p.m. Monday in Mexico City) and were driven by three sunspots and a large magnetic filament, which is a large plasma loop suspended above the Sun. surface, Space Weather reports.

This rare solar phenomenon is called “nice sun flare“, and this happens when sunspots or filaments are invisibly connected by huge loops of magnetic field, almost invisible in the corona and atmosphere of the Sun. So when one explodes, the others explode simultaneously in a chain.

Usually these solar flares occur in pairs, but in this case 4 simultaneous eruptions were recorded, so we can say that “super beautiful sun flareAccording to Space Weather.

NASA scientists are still unclear about the force and intensity of these simultaneous explosions on the Sun, which covered about a third of the solar surface.

However, some debris from the eruption could head straight towards Earth, such as huge clouds of plasma and radiation from some flares known as a coronal mass ejection (CME), and cause G1 solar storms in the coming days.

Despite the alarming nature of this situation, the expected damage to our planet is not that serious, since if any of this debris were to collide with the Earth’s atmosphere, bright auroras could be seen near the planet’s magnetic poles.

In case of more serious consequences on our planet, in addition to exposing astronauts to dangerous doses of radiation, electrical grids, telecommunication systems and satellites in orbit could be disrupted.

Similar to what happened last week, when about 25 eruptions were detected at different times and on different parts of the solar surface last Wednesday, April 17, causing a minor radio blackout in Hawaii and the southwest coast of India. On April 18, the eastern part of the Philippines was hit.

On the other hand, this is the third sympathetic flare in 2024 and marks the beginning of more frequent and powerful solar storms, which is accompanied by an increase in the number of scattered sunspots, since there were about 14 sunspot groups recorded on Tuesday, April 23, according to Earth Sky.