From May 10 to May 13, people around the world witnessed stunning auroras as Earth’s magnetic field experienced its largest disturbance since October 2003.
Earth recorded the strongest geomagnetic storm in over 20 years after a series of solar storms swept across the planet. This special event created brilliant auroral displays visible from areas as far south as Florida, USA, disrupting power grids and temporarily affecting satellites, as reported by Live Science on May 13.
Aurora lighting up the sky in Hulunbuir, Inner Mongolia, China on May 11. (Photo: VCG).
The disturbance in Earth’s magnetic field lasted from May 10 to early May 13, beginning when at least five solar storms known as coronal mass ejections (CME) collided with the planet’s protective shield in succession. These CMEs were launched into space the previous week by a solar flare from a massive sunspot named AR3664, which is more than 15 times the size of Earth. Most of these solar flares were classified as X-class, the strongest type of surface explosion that the Sun can produce.
The series of CMEs temporarily weakened Earth’s magnetic field, allowing charged particles from the Sun to penetrate the atmosphere and energize gas molecules, resulting in colorful auroras appearing at latitudes farther from the poles than usual. In the Northern Hemisphere, auroras illuminated the skies of Florida, USA, Mexico, and Puerto Rico, as well as many locations in Europe, according to Spaceweather.com. Similar light columns were also reported in the Southern Hemisphere.
Scientists at the Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted that this geomagnetic storm was classified as G4, the second-highest intensity level. However, the disturbance exceeded initial predictions and reached G5 level at least twice on May 10 and May 11, according to SWPC. This classification is also the same as the Carrington Event in 1859 and marks the first time Earth has experienced G5 conditions since the Great Halloween Storm in 2003.
Theoretically, G5 storms can cause satellites to fall to Earth, damage ground infrastructure, and disrupt power grids. However, in this instance, the worst impacts were power grid flickering, GPS, and some other satellite services experiencing temporary interruptions.
G5 storms are extremely rare but are more likely to occur during solar maximum, the period of greatest solar activity in the 11-year solar cycle. Scientists cannot determine exactly when this phase begins in real-time, but several experts suggest that we have entered the solar maximum phase.
