A geomagnetic storm is expected: the Sun threatens the Earth with a flare and a coronal hole

Scientists have discovered two alarming phenomena on the star at once

A giant coronal hole 20 times the size of Earth and the highest class X flare could join forces to create a powerful geomagnetic storm by the weekend.

In the gradation of solar phenomena, coronal holes are in last place in terms of the degree of influence on the Earth. The solar wind that blows from such a hole can accelerate to 800-900 km/s, but another class of phenomena – coronal mass ejections are much stronger – their wind speed can reach 2-3 thousand km/s.

The giant coronal hole that now flaunts on the solar disk really has a size of 20 Earth diameters. This is impressive, if you do not know that earlier, for example, on March 1, when it was already gaping in the Sun, it was many times larger! Usually coronal holes appear near the solar poles, but this time this object is located right on the equator and seems to be aiming at our planet.

The second gift that gave birth to our star was the X1.27 class flare on March 29, which originated near the western edge of the Sun’s disk.

Class X flares are the strongest solar flares, the higher their index, the more intense they are (X10 is 10 times more intense than X1). Usually, if their mass reaches the Earth, we can experience the strongest geomagnetic storms and the largest outages of shortwave radio communications.

As the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism and Radio Wave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences explained to MK, the location of the last flash is such that the plasma from it is unlikely to touch our planet – it will most likely fly past. But if it does hit, then in combination with the wind from the coronal hole, they can cause a magnetic storm by the upcoming weekend.