Aurora lights up skies during solar storm
THE SA National Space Agency (Sansa) Space Weather Centre said a historic solar storm impacted Earth this weekend. The Sansa issued several G4 warnings and, for the first time since 2003, one G5 warning was issued.
The Geomagnetic Storm Scale indicates the severity of geomagnetic storms. It’s denoted by a G, followed by a number from 1 to 5, with 1 being a minor and 5 an extreme event.
According to Sansa, a geomagnetic storm occurs when charged particles from the sun, caused by a coronal mass ejection, interact with the Earth’s magnetic field.
The impact of such a storm is mostly on technological systems; however, it is also the origin of the Northern and Southern Lights. There were several reports of Aurora Australis, also known as the Southern Lights, being visible over the southern tip of Africa. Sightings were reported from Gansbaai in the Western Cape and Namibia, among others.
Auroras are caused by the energetic particles from the sun as they interact with the gases in the upper atmosphere, Sansa said.
Jon Ward, acting executive director at Sansa Space Science in Hermanus, noted that this is the largest geomagnetic storm observed in a long time.
“Although the likelihood of such a storm occurring is quite low, the severity of the impacts on technological systems can be very high. The energy and transport sectors are particularly
vulnerable at the moment,” Ward said.
“Space weather is a global phenomenon, the impacts are regional and vary greatly, depending on the time of arrival of the storm and whether the region is experiencing day or night.”
Sansa’s Space Weather Centre was built to focus on these impacts in the African region.
Ward said the world is so dependent on technology now and everything is so integrated, with devices getting smarter and interconnected.
“We are so much more susceptible to disruptions due to solar events and space weather than we were 20 years ago. Awareness of space weather is critical in planning to protect against potential losses,” he said.
Sansa launched its 24/7 operational Space Weather Centre at its facility in Hermanus in November 2022. This state-of-the-art facility operates around the clock to monitor and mitigate the risk of space weather on our continent. Sansa has been actively studying and forecasting space weather since 2009 and is the only accredited space weather centre in Africa.