But there are unknowns associated with any magnetic storm, especially the exact timing of its arrival. The large expulsion of plasma from the sun, called a coronal mass ejection, is traveling in space at about one million to six million miles an hour. With Earth about 92 million miles away from the sun, the commute for the ejected particles is brief, sometimes as short as 15 hours or as long as four days, Dr. Murtagh said.
“This one is kind of on the fast side,” Mr. Murtagh said on Saturday. “We expect it sometime today, so it’ll be a little bit over a 50-hour transit.”
Since the ejected particles are so far away, however, scientists aren’t able to predict the exact timing. But if the particles arrive at Earth during the daytime, there won’t be a light show, experts said. The same holds true if one lives in a city with high light pollution or in an area experiencing cloudy weather.
But if it is nighttime, the skies are clear and there is low light pollution, then chances are good that people will see the aurora borealis, experts said.
Source Article from https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/30/science/space/aurora-northern-lights.html
Comments