Giant Sunspot Pointing Right at Earth, What Impact?

KOMPAS.com – Spots sun a giant whose size swelled to 2.5 times its size Earth in just 24 hours, now heading right to our planet.

According to Spaceweather.com, sun spots The so-called AR3038 grew rapidly from Sunday (June 19) to Monday night (June 20), making it now 31,900 kilometers in diameter.

Quoted from Science AlertFriday (24/6/2022) Sunspots are dark patches on the sun’s surface, where a strong magnetic field is created by the flow of electric charges from the solar plasma.

The resulting release of energy then launches bursts of radiation called a solar flare and produces a beam of solar material called a solar flare. coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

“Sun spots the fast-growing species doubled in size in just 24 hours. AR3038 also has an unstable beta-gamma magnetic field that stores energy for class M solar flares and faces Earth directly,” wrote Spaceweather.com, a site devoted to solar flares, geomagnetic storms, and other cosmic weather events.

Also read: Why does the sun rise in the east and set in the west?

Despite its very fast growth, giant sunspot not as scary as it looks.

The flare created is likely to produce a class M solar flare. Generally, according to the European Space Agency, it will cause radio outages affecting Earth’s polar regions as well as minor radiation storms.

The process occurs when the sun’s flare hits Earth’s upper atmosphere, X-rays and ultraviolet radiation ionize atoms, making it impossible to reflect high-frequency radio waves that can cause radio blackout interference.

Radio outages occur in areas of Earth that are illuminated by the sun while a flare is in progress. The outages are classified from R1 to R5 according to their severity.

In previous reports, in April and May two solar flares caused a blackout of R3 levels over the Atlantic Ocean, Australia and Asia.

When a solar flare travels at the speed of light, it only takes 8 minutes to reach Earth, from an average distance of about 150 million kilometers.

Meanwhile, if sunspots facing Earth form near the equator Sunit usually takes less than two weeks to cross the sun until it is no longer facing Earth.

Currently, AR3038 is located slightly north of the Sun’s equator and more than halfway, so Earth will remain in its crosshairs for a few more days.

Class M flares are the most common type of solar flare, although the sun also occasionally releases very large class X flares (strongest category) with the potential to cause high-frequency blackouts on the side of the Earth that the flare is exposed to. But this rarely happens.

In addition, sun spots can also emit solar material. On a planet with a strong magnetic field like Earth, a barrage of solar debris from the CME is absorbed by our magnetic field, triggering powerful geomagnetic storms.

If solar debris from the CME interacts with Earth’s magnetic field it can create colorful lights in the atmosphere known as auroras.

Also read: Dead Sunspot Explosion Triggers Aurora, Expert Explains

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