First Solar Storm Of Season Expected This Weekend
BALTIMORE (WJZ)--The sun has provided some welcome warmth this week. But it's also packing a punch, triggered by the first big solar storm in years.
Alex DeMetrick reports this kind of space weather sets off alerts around the globe.
Solar storms, releasing staggering amounts of magnetic and radioactive energy, come in cycles.
The last major storms we had were in 2004, 2005," said Dr. Brian Anderson, JHU Applied Physics Lab. "And the sun is starting to act up. It does every 11 or 12 years or so."
Ghostly northern lights are caused by solar energy slamming into the earth's atmosphere. At the Hopkins Applied Physics Lab in Howard County, solar storms are monitored.
A number of spacecraft have been sent well beyond Earth each looking for different signs of a solar eruption.
The first storm of a new season will pass Earth this weekend. Fortunately, it is small.
"If we get a big one and we see northern lights as far as D.C. that heats the upper portion of the atmosphere and can increase satellite drag and cause dramatically increased radiation belts around the Earth," Anderson said. "Those kind affect satellites fairly promptly, interrupting communications and causing upsets to satellites."
Solar storms can also knock out power grids, all of which makes forecasting space weather with spacecraft a priority.
"They can tell us that it's very likely that something is coming. It has the equivalent of a watch that we're familiar with from the National Weather Service," Anderson said.
For a storm, it's like snow at Halloween-- an early harbinger for a lot more to come.
"The kind of action regions and flares that we're seeing now should become more prevalent over the next few years," Anderson.
Even though this weekend's solar storm is not expected to cause major problems, aircrafts that fly polar routes have been directed south in case communication glitches develop.
