A giant solar storm is moving to Earth today

After a long period of 'restful sleep', the Sun woke up with a powerful eclipse that occurred on December 7 in the area called 2790. This solar eruption was unleashes a wave of matter in the form of a plasma with an extremely strong magnetic field across the solar system. This is also known as the solar storm, or magnetic storm.

Notably, according to the Center for Space Weather Forecasting (SWPC) of the US National Oceanic and Climate Agency (NOAA), part of a solar storm carrying huge amounts of charged matter is also on the way. to Earth's atmosphere on the nights of 9/12 and 10/12 in the Northern Hemisphere. The magnetic storm phenomenon will persist in the next 1-2 days. NOAA also forecasts the possibility of a storm reaching a strong "if the solar wind associated magnetic field is well connected to the Earth's magnetic field".

According to CNN, this space weather phenomenon can cause communication interruptions such as GPS positioning errors, or interference in the grid and radio waves.

Like storms from the past, aurorae will appear in the sky. Due to the strength of the storm, this phenomenon will take place even in the areas south of the Northern Hemisphere, instead of just occurring in the Arctic Circle as usual. 

Accordingly, people in some US cities such as Chicago, Detroit, Boston and Seattle will have the opportunity to see magical light trails in the night sky within 3 hours, starting from 22:00 on December 9 and 10. /twelfth. The most common color of auroras is glow blue. However, the Earth's atmosphere can also combine with matter particles from solar storms and produce many other colors such as red, pink, blue and purple.

Notably, just 1 week later, astronomers around the world will continue to be watched another interesting event about to take place. Accordingly, Saturn and Jupiter will line up at the closest distance in the sky when observed from Earth. This is called the extremely rare "Congress" event, taking place for the first time in 800 years. 

Specifically, from December 16 to December 25, Jupiter and Saturn will appear at a very close distance, only 1/5 of the diameter of the full moon. The time they came closest together fell on December 21. Even though Jupiter and Saturn are still hundreds of millions of kilometers apart in space, when we look up in the night sky, both planets will look like a single small dot of light.

Jessica Tanner

Update 10 December 2020