Source: Strait Herald Comprehensive National Early Warning Release, CCTV News, National Space Weather Monitoring and Early Warning Center
A super-geomagnetic storm occurred.
The National Space Weather Monitoring and Warning Center issued a red warning for geomagnetic storms at 09:00 on the 11th: geomagnetic storms will occur from 23:00 on May 10, 2024, Beijing time, and the maximum level will reach the level of ultra-geomagnetic storms (Kp=9), and it is expected that the magnetic storm process will continue in the next 24 hours, and geomagnetic storms may still occur in the future.
Under the influence of geomagnetic storms, the ionosphere will be disturbed in most parts of the continent, and shortwave communication and navigation and positioning will be affected to varying degrees. A significant increase in the density of the upper atmosphere will lead to an increase in the orbital attenuation of low-orbit satellites.
The National Space Weather Monitoring and Warning Center will closely track the development of the event and release forecast and early warning information in a timely manner.
Since May, with the emergence of large sunspots on the sun's surface, the sun has continued to erupt violently, with 10 X-class flares and more than 60 M-class flares erupting in just one week, and the intensity and frequency of outbreaks are rare in history.
What is a geomagnetic storm
A geomagnetic storm is a typical type of solar eruptive activity. When the Sun erupts, coronal mass ejections occur, and a single ejection can throw hundreds of millions of tons of solar material off the surface of the Sun at high speeds of hundreds to thousands of meters per second. These substances not only contain the kinetic energy of the massive mass and velocity, but also carry the powerful magnetic energy of the sun. Once they hit the Earth, they trigger a change in the direction and magnitude of the geomagnetic field, known as a geomagnetic storm.
▲The two "pretentious" solar activity regions before the outbreak of coronal mass ejections (CME) Xihe satellites
What is the impact of this geomagnetic storm
During geomagnetic storms, artificial satellites and space stations operating at an orbital altitude of about 400 km may decrease their orbital altitude due to atmospheric dragging, and the positioning error of satellite navigation equipment increases. For aircraft flying in the stratospheric bottom altitude region of the atmosphere, they will face the double risk of deterioration of the communication environment and radiation in the transpolar region, and the changes in geomagnetic intensity and inclination caused by magnetic storms will bring trouble to animals that rely on geomagnetic navigation such as carrier pigeons.
The aurora feast is coming as scheduled
However, then again, geomagnetic storms are not all bad, such as the aurora that comes with them!
Affected by the coronal mass ejection event, a very geomagnetic storm erupted in the Earth's magnetic field from the night of May 10 to the early morning of May 11 (kp=9). Under the combined action of the earth's magnetic field and atmosphere, an aurora feast arrived as scheduled, and gorgeous auroras appeared in Mohe in Heilongjiang and parts of Xinjiang.
When a geodetic storm occurs, beautiful auroras will reappear at high latitudes.