Solar storm brings dazzling aurora, threatens power grids

A couple watch the display of the aurora borealis in Manning Park in the heart of the Cascade Mountains in British Columbia, Canada, on 11 May. Photo: Andrew Chin/Getty Images

By Bloomberg

12 May 2024

The last time a solar storm this strong struck Earth was in October 2003. It caused power outages in Sweden and damaged transformers in South Africa.

A severe solar storm this weekend brought a dazzling display of the Northern Lights that could be seen across Europe and as far south as Alabama in the US, while threatening to trigger blackouts and disrupt navigation systems around the world.

An extreme geomagnetic storm was under way as energy from the sun collided with Earth’s magnetic field, the US Space Weather Prediction Center said. The threshold for the G5 storm, the highest on the centre’s five-step scale, was reached at 6.54pm New York time on Friday.

The last time a storm this strong struck Earth was in October 2003, which caused power outages in Sweden and damaged transformers in South Africa, said the agency, which is part of the US National Weather Service. The storms came about after five coronal mass ejections burst from a large sunspot cluster earlier this week.

Having so many of these bursts of energy spaced so close together was very rare, said Michael Wiltberger, a scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. “Five is amazing. I am just stunned.”

Wiltberger said scientists weren’t sure what would happen with the coronal mass ejections coming so close together and how they would interact with each other and the Earth’s magnetic field. Where skies are clear, reports are coming in from all over the world from people seeing the aurora.

The Northern Lights illuminate the night sky over the mountains in Le Col des Mosses pass, Switzerland, on 11 May 2024. The lights, or aurora borealis, were visible in the Swiss sky after an 'extreme' solar storm hit Earth on 10 May. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Jean-Christophe Bott)

The northern lights are seen above the Columbia River Gorge from Chanticleer Point Lookout in Latourell, Oregon, in the early morning hours of 11 May. (Photo: Mathieu Lewis-Rolland / Getty Images)

The northern lights, also known as the aurora borealis, streak through the sky over a horse barn in Mercer, Maine, on 10 May. (Photo: Michael Seamans / Getty Images)

A couple watch the display of the aurora borealis in Manning Park in the heart of the Cascade Mountains in British Columbia, Canada, 11 May. (Photo: Andrew Chin / Getty Images)

In addition to the brilliant cosmic display, a G5 storm can disrupt electric grids and satellites, energise pipelines and cause havoc with global navigation systems. SpaceX’s Starlink unit said on its website that it was “currently experiencing degraded service” and that its “team is investigating.” Earlier, owner Elon Musk said in a post on X that SpaceX satellites were “feeling” the solar storm. He didn’t elaborate.

US Space Weather officials had been in contact with grid and pipeline operators so they were prepared, said Shawn Dahl, a US space weather forecaster. The danger is that the storms can inject direct current into alternating current transmission lines and send low pulses of electricity through railroad tracks and pipelines. Some GPS signals may be lost during the event.

The aurora, often called the Northern Lights, were seen overnight in many parts of Asia, Europe and North America, including as far south as Alabama and California.

The culprit is a sunspot cluster visible on the right side of the sun’s disc that is 16 times wider than Earth. The sun, which rolls through an 11-year cycle in which the number of spots waxes and wanes, is approaching the peak of the current one that began in December 2019.

The cluster had been spitting out coronal mass ejections, or clouds of plasma, about every six to 12 hours, said Brent Gordon, chief of the space services branch of the Space Weather Prediction Center.

The effects of the solar storm may last through the weekend into next week. DM

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