The dazzling northern lights could light up the skies as far south as the northern United States after the detection of 17 solar eruptions blasting from a single sunspot, two of which are headed straight to Earth.
The two Earth-directed eruptions have merged into a cannibalism mass ejection and are barreling toward us at over one million miles per hour.
A powerful G3 geomagnetic storm will occur on the night of March 30 when it crashes into the Earth's magnetic field.
G3 storms are considered to be strong geomagnetic storms, meaning that the oncoming Sun could bring the Aurora as far south as Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Oregon.
The sunspot has been shooting out flares of particles from the Sun since Monday.
Sunspots are areas on the Sun where powerful magnetic fields are created by the flow of electrical charges. The resulting release of energy launches bursts of radiation called solar flares.
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When solar eruptions overtake earlier eruptions in the same region of space, charged particles form a giant wavefront that causes a powerful storm.
SpaceWeather.com wrote that the solar flares meant that at least two full-halo eruptions emerged from the chaos. The second CME is expected to overtake the first before hitting the Earth's magnetic field on March 30.
The SWPC says that it takes around 15 to 18 hours to reach Earth.
When they do, the Earth's magnetic field gets compressed slightly by the waves of highly energetic particles, which ripple down magnetic field lines and release energy in the form of light in the night sky.
Large solar storms have the potential to wreak havoc, but the energy from the storm is expected to be harmlessly absorbed by our magnetic field. According to SWPC, G3 storms can cause intermittent satellite navigation and low-frequency radio navigation problems.
A recent storm sent 40 Starlink satellites tumbling back to Earth, and scientists warned that an even larger one could have the potential to cripple the internet across the globe.
The largest solar storm ever witnessed was the 1859 Carrington event, which carried the same amount of energy as 10 billion atomic bombs, according to scientists.
After slamming into the Earth, the powerful stream of solar particles fried telegram systems all over the world and caused the Auroras to appear as far south as the Caribbean.
It would cause trillions of dollars in damage and widespread power cuts if a similar event happened today, according to scientists.
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The article was published by Live Science. The original article can be found here.
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