Hey my night owls and aurora hunters! 🌌 I've got fresh news for you straight from the Sun and no, this time it's not just hot air like after your second shot of juniper brandy! 😏🥃
Yesterday the Sun sent us a greeting in the form of a slow asymmetric halo coronal mass ejection (CME), which was launched during an M2.7-class solar flare. Responsible for this whole circus is sunspot 4392, which is located near the central meridian. It's just sitting right in the middle like a grandpa on a bench in front of the pub and is aiming straight at us! 🎯☀️
NOAA's ENLIL solar wind model predicts impact sometime around noon on Thursday, March 19, and a moderate G2-level geomagnetic storm warning has already been issued. 🌍⚡ But watch out, this might be a bit optimistic! SIDC is actually saying it will arrive late on Thursday, which makes a lot more sense when you realize that the CME was moving at only 550 km/s at launch. In space terms, that's about as fast as me after my fifth beer on the way home from the pub. 🍺😂
Even the G2 level seems a bit overshot to me, since the ejection was slow and its outline in the images looks pretty faint, like when you're trying to see the aurora through clouds over Šírava. 😅🌥️ But you know what? I'd love to be surprised! 🤞✨
So what does this mean for us in Slovakia? 🇸🇰 If the storm really ramps up to G2, there's a chance the aurora could be visible even at lower latitudes! Don't count on it a hundred percent, but having your cameras charged and staying alert definitely won't hurt! 📸🔭
Keep your fingers crossed, folks, and follow ziara.sk, where we'll let you know as soon as we have fresh data! 🚀💜 In the meantime, I'm going to chill a bottle of juniper brandy just in case we'll be celebrating! 🥂😎🌠
Your Astronomer Cassandra ✨
