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Journalism of Courage
A National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) model predicts that a “cannibal” coronal mass ejection from the Sun will strike our planet on Friday, December 1. This can cause intense, tangled magnetic fields that can spark auroras on our planet when they reach.
Coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, are large expulsions of plasma from the Sun’s corona. CMEs can contain billions of tons of material from the corona and carry strong embedded magnetic fields. They can travel outward from the Sun at speeds as low as 250 kilometres per second to as high as 3,000 kilometres per second. A cannibal CME is one where a fast CME sweeps up a slower one ahead of it, causing intense, tangled magnetic fields.
If the cannibal CME hits Earth on December 1, as predicted by NOAA, it could cause geomagnetic storms that reach category G3, according to SpaceWeather.com. G3-level geomagnetic storms are quite strong and can trigger some power system protection devices, causing low-level blackouts.
They can also cause intermittent interruptions to satellite navigation and low-frequency radio navigation. They could also affect satellites in orbit, causing surface charging on components and increasing drag on low-Earth orbit satellites. On the flip side, they can also trigger beautiful auroras that will be visible much closer to the equator than usual.
