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The Earth is dealing with it this weekend one of the strongest solar storms in more than twenty years. That storm creates an amazing display of colors in the sky in the Netherlands, but also in other countries. Experts call it a strike, but apart from the Northern Lights we may not notice much of it in the coming days.
Astronomer Lucas Ellerbroek talks about a special storm and “moderately high solar activity”. This phenomenon is waiting for us more often in the coming year, he thinks, but we don’t have to worry. “The scene takes place in the polar lights,” says Ellerbroek. “Other than that, people hardly notice anything. “
“Spectacular,” is how Esther Hanko describes last night’s northern lights. She is involved in the Anton Pannekoek Institute for Astronomy at the University of Amsterdam. Last night she only slept for three hours, the rest of the time the amateur astronomer watched the northern lights.
“You can often take beautiful pictures of it in Holland, but it’s not easy to see with the naked eye. This was uncertain and almost unbelievable. It didn’t seem real. It’s it really is a great solar storm.”
Musk satellites
The solar storm could affect GPS, power grids, spacecraft, satellite navigation and other technologies, according to the US Bureau of Meteorology and Oceanography. Starlink, the satellite division of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, is warning of “declining service” due to the solar storm.
Starlink has about 60 percent of the 7,500 satellites around the Earth. Earlier today, Musk said that these satellites are under a lot of pressure, but that they have held up so far.
A real disturbance will not happen, Ellerbroek and Hanko think. In the nineteenth century, solar storms caused power outages, Hanko knows. But in a world where we can’t do without electricity, she says enough steps have been taken to deal with any disruption.
The Northern Lights made beautiful pictures everywhere in the Netherlands:
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Joost Coffeng/NOS Eyewitness
Northern Lights in Woerden -
Frederiek/NOS Eyewitness
The Northern Lights in IJmuiden -
Arnoud van de Weerd/NOS Eyewitness
Northern lights above IJmuiden
Ellerbroek says that there is more equipment today that is sensitive to malfunctions, but also that there are plenty of backup options. msgstr “If a power network goes down, there is often a backup.” Satellites have less protection. “They are more vulnerable than, for example, the power grids on the ground.”
Astronomer Niek de Kort was also earlier sober about the possible consequences for the networks, as they are “well secured and built to withstand it”. Most satellites are shielded by the Earth’s magnetic field, he explains. “And if it does, the outage will be brief. Think of it as a computer that freezes: you turn it off and on, and it works again.”
‘Sun Trust’
Solar storms happen all the time, but now they are more often in the news. This is because the solar activity is at the end of a cycle. Such a cycle lasts on average more than eleven years. Eventually, more solar storms occur. That was true too March the northern lights can be clearly seen. This also applied in the middle of April, then above the Wadden and some places in Drenthe.
“We are approaching the so-called ‘peak solar’,” says meteorologist Wouter van Bernebeek Weather Plaza. During that time, most sunspots appear on the surface of the sun. And without a spot of sun you don’t have a storm. A sunspot is a cooler spot on the sun.
Such a solar flare produces a solar flare, explained astronomer Simon Portegies Zwart at Leiden University out already. “The poles are associated with magnetic field lines. Magnetically charged particles follow these lines. Gas – the solar wind – comes from the sun and if the pressure becomes too strong, the magnetic lines that breaks.”
Mass of the sun
That’s the time when a lot of energy is released in a big explosion: a solar flare. Then not only does radiation come from the sun, but also electrically charged particles, Ellerbroek explains. “These particles are heavier than light particles. The sun emits them continuously, but in a solar storm this happens a lot. It’s just like a hurricane on the ocean. Mass is thrown from the sun into space. Some of it is coming our way.”
Due to the Earth’s magnetic field, these particles do not reach the Earth immediately, but they climb, as it were, towards the north and south poles, says Hanko. “If the solar storm is strong enough and the magnetic field is favorable, it can cause the particles to react with particles in our atmosphere, which produces colorful pictures in the sky.”
2024-05-11 14:54:23
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