We may get to see the aurora Tuesday night, with clear skies and a little luck. The northern lights are rare this far south and are generally seen only in the higher lattitudes. Tomorrow night might just be the exception. Last night the sun hurled another coronal mass ejection at the earth, just as it had done last week. CME’s are energetic blasts of radiation and heavily charged plasma. They can disrupt the earth’s magnetic field as well as radio and satellite communication. They also cause spectacular light shows in the form of the Aurora Borealis. According to the Washington Post:
The solar storm is the biggest since 2005, he added.
The storm will peak Tuesday when a speeding cloud of plasma and charged particles blasts past Earth, distorting the planet’s magnetic field with impacts possibly ranging as far south in latitude as Texas and Arizona.
“We expect moderate to potentially strong geomagnetic storming that can cause pipeline corrosion effects and power grid fluctuations,” Biesecker said.
NASA scientists predict that the storm will peak about 9 a.m. Tuesday, although it could peak up to seven hours earlier or later, said Michael Hesse of NASA’s Space Weather Laboratory, at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt. The storm is expected to continue through Wednesday.
“It’s not going to be a catastrophe, but there could be noticeable geomagnetic current induced on the electrical grid,” he said.
