Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.A series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun have the potential to create dazzling auroras that may be seen as far south as Alabama and Northern California but also disrupt communications on Earth tonight and over the weekend, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center.The center, which is a division of the National Weather Service, issued a severe geomagnetic storm watch for Friday evening. It’s the first such watch issued since January 2005.As the sun nears the peak of activity in its 11-year cycle, known as solar maximum, later this year, researchers have observed increasingly intense solar flares erupting from the fiery orb.Increased solar activity causes auroras that dance around Earth’s poles, known as the northern lights, or aurora borealis, and southern lights, or aurora australis. When the energized particles from coronal mass ejections reach Earth’s magnetic field, they interact with gases in the atmosphere to create different colored light in the sky.The Space Weather Prediction Center tracked multiple strong flares emitting from a large cluster of sunspots on the solar surface since Wednesday. The cluster is 16 times the diameter of Earth.Scientists observed at least five coronal mass ejections, or large clouds of ionized gas called plasma and magnetic fields that erupt from the sun’s outer atmosphere, releasing from the sun in the direction of Earth. These significant outburts are expected to arrive as early as midday Friday and continue through Sunday.Forecasters won’t know the true intensity of the storm until it arrives about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, reaching satellites that monitor space weather, which is estimated to happen at about 8 p.m. ET Friday, said Shawn Dahl, the service coordinator for the Space Weather Prediction Center.After determining the intensity, the forecasters may issue addition …
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[mwai_chat context=”Let’s have a discussion about this article:nnSign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more.A series of solar flares and coronal mass ejections from the sun have the potential to create dazzling auroras that may be seen as far south as Alabama and Northern California but also disrupt communications on Earth tonight and over the weekend, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center.The center, which is a division of the National Weather Service, issued a severe geomagnetic storm watch for Friday evening. It’s the first such watch issued since January 2005.As the sun nears the peak of activity in its 11-year cycle, known as solar maximum, later this year, researchers have observed increasingly intense solar flares erupting from the fiery orb.Increased solar activity causes auroras that dance around Earth’s poles, known as the northern lights, or aurora borealis, and southern lights, or aurora australis. When the energized particles from coronal mass ejections reach Earth’s magnetic field, they interact with gases in the atmosphere to create different colored light in the sky.The Space Weather Prediction Center tracked multiple strong flares emitting from a large cluster of sunspots on the solar surface since Wednesday. The cluster is 16 times the diameter of Earth.Scientists observed at least five coronal mass ejections, or large clouds of ionized gas called plasma and magnetic fields that erupt from the sun’s outer atmosphere, releasing from the sun in the direction of Earth. These significant outburts are expected to arrive as early as midday Friday and continue through Sunday.Forecasters won’t know the true intensity of the storm until it arrives about 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, reaching satellites that monitor space weather, which is estimated to happen at about 8 p.m. ET Friday, said Shawn Dahl, the service coordinator for the Space Weather Prediction Center.After determining the intensity, the forecasters may issue addition …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]
