A “severe” solar storm is scheduled to hit the Earth on Thursday and Friday, potentially disrupting satellite communications, including those from SpaceX’s Starlink.
On Tuesday, the Sun ejected a mass of plasma, sending a burst of radiation toward Earth that’s poised to create a geomagnetic storm, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center.
The storm is expected to reach a “G4 (severe)” rating when it approaches the planet in the morning or midday on Thursday, Oct. 11, EST. But more characteristics about the storm won’t be known until it’s within 1 million miles of the planet, or about four times away from the Moon.
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The geomagnetic storm has prompted New York’s local emergency management agency to warn the public. “Impacts to critical infrastructure, including GPS, power grids, and communications, including inaccuracies or disruptions, are possible,” the agency tweeted.
Such storms can disrupt satellites and radio signals because the bursts of radiation from the Sun will become absorbed in the atmosphere, creating auroras in the sky. The same effect can also cause radio waves from satellites to fluctuate or travel in unexpected paths, leading to accuracy errors or outages.
The solar storm is arriving when Starlink is providing internet access to users still reeling from Hurricane Helene. In addition, Starlink’s cellular connectivity has started coming online in Florida and North Carolina to deliver emergency alerts and power text messaging for T-Mobile users.
The approaching storm might cause a disruption similar to the one that hit the Earth in May. It, too, was initially rated as a G4 storm but reached a G5 extreme rating during its peak on May 11, “the first time this severity has been observed since 2003,” according to the FCC.
The May storm briefly caused some Starlink users to experience outages or slower-than-normal speeds. But overall, SpaceX later said it weathered the incident without losing any Starlink satellites. Another satellite provider, Iridium, also encountered no major problems.
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