Several geomagnetic storms are expected to impact Earth this week, according to scientists.
Geomagnetic storms are created by solar corona ejections into space, which induce perturbations in the Earth's upper atmosphere and increased drag on objects in low orbits.
The British Met Office warned that "there is a likelihood of improvements to the auroral oval at periods between the 13th and 14th of March as a result of two Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and a coronal hole high-speed stream arriving near Earth."
A pair of solar flares will cause the storm, which will be a large cloud of charged particles flinging from the Sun at around 4.5 million miles per hour (7.2 million kilometres per hour), according to astronomers.
Accoding to Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this is likely the strongest such event in over six years and is likely more powerful than a comparable storm in late January (NOAA).
This solar disturbance is a three-stage event, or, as Kunches put it over the phone from Boulder, Colorado, "we struck the trifecta."
Two solar flares travelling at almost the speed of light hit Earth late Tuesday in the first stage. Radio blackouts can occur as a result of such flares.
Then, on Wednesday, solar radiation impacted Earth's magnetic field, potentially affecting aviation traffic, particularly near the poles, satellites, and any astronauts performing space walks. This stage might last many days.
Finally, the coronal mass ejection's plasma cloud, which is essentially a large portion of the Sun's atmosphere, is projected to arrive on Earth early Thursday.
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According to space industry researcher Seradata, there are around 4,000 operational satellites in this area, which spans to 1,200 miles above the earth, as well as 15,000 pieces of trash such as rocket bodies and defunct probes.
According to NOAA's Doug Biesiecker, GPS devices used for less sophisticated functionality, such as turn-by-turn navigation used in many automobiles, should be unaffected.
The geomagnetic component of the storm may come ahead of schedule, according to Kunches, because it follows a previous storm that left the Sun on Sunday and is already buffeting the Earth's magnetosphere.
"When you've already experienced one coronal mass ejection storm, the following coronal mass ejection storm might arrive faster," Kunches explained.
According to scientists, these storms might create some spectacular auroras. The aurora borealis may be seen in the Northern Hemisphere in mid-latitudes, which might encompass New York, Illinois, and Iowa in the United States.
According to Harlan Spence, an astronomer at the University of New Hampshire and lead investigator of NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's Cosmic Ray Telescope for the Effects of Radiation (CRaTER), such violent space weather is unprecedented in recent history.
"These very huge (solar) occurrences, which we've only seen a few of handfuls of over the course of a decade, we've now got two or three of them, more or less right on top of each other," Spence said by phone.
According to astronomers, the Sun is in the ascending phase of its 11-year cycle of solar activity, with the peak predicted next year.
"It's a definite sign that the Sun is awakening," Spence added. "We're trying to put this in perspective not just of what the Sun has done in the past, but also of what the Sun is capable of and what we should be prepared for in terms of severe occurrences in the future."