For those who had the opportunity to see the aurora this weekend, it was quite a spectacular moment.But while seeing the aurora borealis is thrilling and exciting for us, the same coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and geomagnetic storms that make these light shows possible can also wreak havoc on some of the technology that’s part of our daily lives.There was a lot of buzz last weekend about other possible impacts when the historic geomagnetic storms reached the extreme G5 category. Companies that operate satellites like SpaceX reported on Sunday (May 12) on X that “all Starlink satellites on-orbit weathered the geomagnetic storm and remain healthy” and even government agencies like NOAA shared that as of right now there’s been no major impacts to their assets.”We’re still gathering information about any impacts, not only to our satellites, but to many other satellites right now,” Dr. Elsayed Talaat, NOAA’s Director of the Office of Space Weather Observations at NESDIS, said in an interview with Space.com. “We were able to avert and mitigate any disaster because of the warnings and alerts that the Space Weather Prediction Center sent out.”Related: Solar flares: What are they and how do they affect Earth?As with weather forecasting on Earth, space weather forecasts are just as critical ahead of the storm. That’s why NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) continuously shares updates that included alerts, watches, and warnings as new information comes in and changes are made to its forecasts.”We did really good with the beginning of this storm. We saw the several coronal mass ejections, we figured out pretty close to when they were going to get here. It’s 93-million miles from the sun to the Earth so within five to seven hours, we consider that a pretty good forecast. We said it would be G4 or greater and all that worked; everything happened as expected,” Bill Murtagh, program coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), told Space.com.The more information forecasters can provide, the sooner power companies can take the preparations needed to prevent disruptions and avoid blackouts and other disruptions. Murtagh also said that part of their job at the SWPC includes making a hotline call to owners and operators of power grids all across the country 24 hours in advance. colorful wisps of light appear in …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnFor those who had the opportunity to see the aurora this weekend, it was quite a spectacular moment.But while seeing the aurora borealis is thrilling and exciting for us, the same coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and geomagnetic storms that make these light shows possible can also wreak havoc on some of the technology that’s part of our daily lives.There was a lot of buzz last weekend about other possible impacts when the historic geomagnetic storms reached the extreme G5 category. Companies that operate satellites like SpaceX reported on Sunday (May 12) on X that “all Starlink satellites on-orbit weathered the geomagnetic storm and remain healthy” and even government agencies like NOAA shared that as of right now there’s been no major impacts to their assets.”We’re still gathering information about any impacts, not only to our satellites, but to many other satellites right now,” Dr. Elsayed Talaat, NOAA’s Director of the Office of Space Weather Observations at NESDIS, said in an interview with Space.com. “We were able to avert and mitigate any disaster because of the warnings and alerts that the Space Weather Prediction Center sent out.”Related: Solar flares: What are they and how do they affect Earth?As with weather forecasting on Earth, space weather forecasts are just as critical ahead of the storm. That’s why NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC) continuously shares updates that included alerts, watches, and warnings as new information comes in and changes are made to its forecasts.”We did really good with the beginning of this storm. We saw the several coronal mass ejections, we figured out pretty close to when they were going to get here. It’s 93-million miles from the sun to the Earth so within five to seven hours, we consider that a pretty good forecast. We said it would be G4 or greater and all that worked; everything happened as expected,” Bill Murtagh, program coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC), told Space.com.The more information forecasters can provide, the sooner power companies can take the preparations needed to prevent disruptions and avoid blackouts and other disruptions. Murtagh also said that part of their job at the SWPC includes making a hotline call to owners and operators of power grids all across the country 24 hours in advance. colorful wisps of light appear in …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
