Solar Winds From The Sun Are Hitting Earth’s Magnetic Field

A stream of solar winds is currently hitting Earth’s magnetic field. According to a space weather forecasting site, the solar winds came from a hole that appeared on the northern portion of the Sun’s atmosphere.

The latest solar forecast was confirmed by SpaceWeather.com. The site noted that the solar event could trigger auroras or polar lights over affected regions.

A solar wind is a stream of highly-charged particles spewed out from the Sun’s atmosphere, which is called the corona. It comes in plasma form and mainly consists of electrons and protons.

SpaceWeather.com recently confirmed that solar winds from the Sun are currently hitting Earth and interacting with its magnetic field. Since the solar winds are only minor, they are not expected to cause disruptive effects on Earth.

Instead, the interaction between the solar winds and Earth’s magnetic field could trigger a beautiful display of auroras in the southern hemisphere.

The latest stream of solar winds came from a hole located at the northern portion of the Sun’s corona. As explained by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) Space Weather Prediction Center, they appear as dark patches on the Sun’s surface.

“Coronal holes appear as dark areas in the solar corona in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft x-ray solar images,” the agency stated. “They appear dark because they are cooler, less dense regions than the surrounding plasma and are regions of open, unipolar magnetic fields.”

Aside from the solar winds, a solar flare eruption was also spotted on the Sun’s surface. According to SpaceWeather.com, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) spotted a plasma-based structure that resembled the tail of a scorpion form on the Sun’s corona before snapping off.

The material that was ejected from the Sun has been rated as B6.4, which is a relatively minor type of solar flare.

“Solar flares are large eruptions of electromagnetic radiation from the Sun lasting from minutes to hours. The sudden outburst of electromagnetic energy travels at the speed of light, therefore any effect upon the sunlit side of Earth’s exposed outer atmosphere occurs at the same time the event is observed,” NOAA explained.

The SDO did not detect traces of the solar flare heading towards Earth, which means that it won’t hit the planet.