What is a geomagnetic storm?Does it have an impact on daily life?

Mondo Health Updated on 2024-01-19

China Meteorological Administration issued a geomagnetic storm warning Please pay attention in the next few days!

According to the monitoring of the Space Weather Center of the China Meteorological Administration, on December 1 and 2, geomagnetic storms may occur in China, of which geomagnetic storms above moderate or even geomagnetic storms may occur on December 1, and geomagnetic activities are expected to continue until December 2. Under this influence, the space station may be dragged by the atmosphere to cause the orbit altitude to decrease, the error of satellite navigation equipment to increase, aviation flight will face the double risk of deterioration of the communication environment and radiation across the polar region, for the public, especially pigeon players and aurora enthusiasts, in the next few days to always pay attention to space weather information.

What is a geomagnetic storm?

As the most typical solar eruption activity, a coronal mass ejection process can throw hundreds of millions of tons of solar material off the surface of the sun at a high speed of hundreds of kilometers per second, not only the kinetic energy of the huge mass and velocity convergence, but also the powerful magnetic field energy of the sun, once it hits the earth, it will cause a change in the direction and magnitude of the geomagnetic field, that is, a geomagnetic storm.

Satellite navigation, aviation flights may be at risk.

With the gradual intensification of magnetic storm activity, the Earth's upper atmosphere is continuously heated, and then expands and spreads into higher space, which creates additional drag for the spacecraft to fly in orbit, resulting in a deceleration effect similar to dragging, reducing the orbital altitude of the spacecraft, and the reduction of altitude corresponds to a denser atmospheric environment, which will further bring greater flight resistance, so that the flight speed is slowed down - the altitude is reduced - the drag is greater - further deceleration - The vicious circle of faster altitude reduction poses a great threat to the safety of spacecraft.

Geomagnetic storms are not all bad, such as the occurrence of auroras. Judging the momentum of future solar activity based on the current change in sunspot number, 2024 is still the high year of solar activity. This means that at least this winter, there is still a possibility of seeing the aurora in the north of our country.

According to Minnan Net.

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