Giant hole in the Sun to blast Earth with geomagnetic storm tomorrow

dailystar.co.uk:

READ NEXT: Asteroids landing on Earth could have been 'old alien spacecrafts' according to research The US Space Weather Prediction Centre has released an alert for the storm, which could impact on radio wave transmissions and power grids across the world.It said the storm could cause high frequency radio signals to be lost at high latitudes, cause issues for satellites, and even cause northern lights style phenomena in parts of the US like New York, Washington, and Wisconsin.A huge hole in the sun's atmosphere is behind such strange events, which is allowing charged particles to escape into the solar system with great force.The effects on Earth could last several days.The stream of particles shot at Earth is known as a "coronal mass ejection" and, while they are not uncommon, they do not often combine with strong solar wind which looks set to cause moderate space weather effects tomorrow (October 1).The sun's solar activity is measured by the amount of magnetic fields it has on the sun's surface with more of them increasing the chance of large streams of particles.

Sunspot numbers change over an 11-year in a "solar cycle" which is currently increasing and likely to peak in 2025.Scientists currently do not fully understand this strange phenomena but some humans at high altitudes or in aeroplanes could be at risk of solar particle exposure, with the effects on the human body not well studied.In October 2015, a research jet owned by the National Science Foundation recorded a huge spike in atmospheric radiation caused by the same solar event while flying between Antarctica and South America.For a few minutes its was flying through double the amount of normal radiation in the earth's atmosphere, levels considered highly.