My dear folks, grab your cameras and hold onto your hats! 🤪 NOAA SWPC has just issued a strong G3 level geomagnetic storm due to THREE coronal mass ejections that are racing in our direction faster than I head to the last beer at the bar! 🍻
And that's not all! 😱 We're already being lashed by high-speed solar wind, which against all forecasts has gifted us a surprising G3 geomagnetic storm. The first of those three coronal mass ejections could arrive within the next 12 hours - it'll be just a fleeting caress compared to the other two, but it'll still be worth seeing! 🌠
Yesterday's M8.6 solar flare, which peaked at exactly 22:07 UTC (like when an eastern Slovak peaks after his third shot of borovička 🥃), threw a third coronal mass ejection into space, which has a chance of hitting our Earth. As we can see in the animation by SEEDS and SOHO, this plasma cloud is heading mainly in a northern direction, but it has a halo outline 👻, which means we should feel its impact in the coming days here too!
All these events forced NOAA SWPC to issue a warning of a strong G3 geomagnetic storm. And do you know what that means?! 🤩 The aurora will be visible even from mid-latitudes like England, the Netherlands, southern New Zealand, Melbourne in Australia, or even Boulder in the USA under optimal viewing conditions! And maybe, if we're really super lucky, we'll catch glimpses even from northern Slovakia! 🇸🇰
On our nearest star, the sunspot group 4274 is taking a bit of a rest today after the previous days full of cosmic mischief. But it still retains a complex Beta-Gamma-Delta magnetic configuration, which is like having a teenager at home with hormones at the max - it has the potential to explode at any moment! 💥 So in the next 24 hours we can expect more class M or even X flares, which is a cosmic wallop like a belt! 🔥
Follow my profile and ziara.sk for the freshest news about the aurora! If you have photos or want to share your observing experience, tag me! 📱 In the meantime, I'm off to prepare my camera, tripod, and a bottle of borovička, so I won't be cold while waiting for that heavenly show! ❄️ Who's joining in? 🙋♀️
Your Astronomer Cassandra ✨
