About Geomagnetic Storms:
- A geomagnetic storm is a major disturbance of Earth's magnetosphere that occurs when there is a very efficient exchange of energy from the solar wind into the space environment surrounding Earth.
- These storms result from variations in the solar wind that produce major changes in the currents, plasmas, and fields in Earth’s magnetosphere.
- The solar wind conditions that are effective for creating geomagnetic storms are sustained (for several hours) periods of the high-speed solar wind and a southward-directed solar wind magnetic field (opposite the direction of Earth’s field) at the dayside of the magnetosphere.
- The largest such storms are associated with solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs), where a billion tons or so of plasma from the sun, with its embedded magnetic field, arrives at Earth.
- Effects:
- It results in intense currents in the magnetosphere, changes in the radiation belts, and changes in the ionosphere, including heating the ionosphere and an upper atmosphere region called the thermosphere.
- These storms can heat the ionosphere, causing beautiful auroras on earth.
- Because the ionosphere is heated and distorted during storms, long-range radio communication that relies on sub-ionospheric reflection gets affected.
- Ionospheric expansion due to these storms can increase satellite drag and make their orbits difficult to control.
- Satellite electronics can be damaged through the buildup and discharge of static-electric charges.
- It can disrupt global navigation systems.
- It can create harmful geomagnetic-induced currents (GICs) in the power grid and pipelines.
What is Solar Wind?
- It is a continual stream of protons and electrons from the sun's outermost atmosphere, the corona.
- These charged particles breeze through the solar system at speeds ranging from around 250 miles (400 kilometers) per second to 500 miles (800 km) per second, in a plasma state.
- Solar magnetic field is embedded in the plasma and flows outward with the solar wind. Different regions of the Sun produce solar wind of different speeds and densities.
- When the solar wind reaches Earth, it sends a flurry of charged particles into the magnetosphere and along Earth's magnetic field lines, towards the poles.
