Risk of Solar Storm Impact on Earth Increases Following Detection of Helical Coronal Mass Ejection from Sun

Throughout this week, the Earth has been fortunate to avoid any solar storms. Although there have been some minor incidents of radio blackouts and disruptions to GPS caused by solar winds, overall the Sun has remained calm. This is despite the emergence of a highly unstable sunspot, AR3405, within our view of the Sun. However, there may be a shift in this pattern. Late yesterday, peculiar radio emissions were detected, which typically serve as a warning sign for a solar flare eruption. As predicted, a flare occurred and a coronal mass ejection (CME) was released, according to reports. The direction of the CME has yet to be confirmed, but there is a chance that it could be heading towards Earth.

The first report of the radio emission came from the SpaceWeatherLive account, X’s account that sends automatic alerts about solar activity. It tweeted: “13:00 UTC – Type II Radio Emission. Start time: 17/08/2023 12:35 UTC. Estimated speed: 617 km/s. Two things to note here. Type II emissions are moderate and speed is exceptionally high .The combination of the two would point toward a solar flare that would be strong enough to send ultraviolet radiation to Earth (hence, high velocity), but not strong enough to be classified as an X-class flare or even a high-M class flare.

Sure enough, there was indeed an eruption. SpaceWeatherNews founder Ben Davidson tweeted about the eruption with the video captioned “Plasma burst in sun today, erupting in helix CME.”

Sun explodes CME, will it hit Earth?

The biggest question right now is how powerful this CME cloud is and whether it will hit Earth. To answer the first question, it shouldn’t be very intense, simply because it was ejected in a small burst, so it’s not likely that a large amount of solar material could have been ejected into space. However, it should be enough to generate a G1-G2 geomagnetic storm.

However, it cannot be said whether a helix-shaped CME can hit the ground or not. There is currently not enough information to make an argument either way. However, scientists from both NASA and NOAA have to analyze the data during the eruption and provide an updated forecast in case it is indeed on its way to our planet.