After a night of stunning auroras across much of the United States and Europe on Friday, a severe geomagnetic storm is likely to continue through at least Sunday, forecasters said.
"The threat of additional strong flares and CMEs (coronal mass ejections) will remain until the large and magnetically complex sunspot cluster rotates out of view over the next several days," the agency posted in an update on the social media site X on Saturday morning.
Large areas of the United States, Europe, and other locations unaccustomed to displays of the aurora borealis saw vivid lights as energetically charged particles from the Solar storm passed through the Earth's atmosphere.
Early on Saturday morning, SpaceX founder Elon Musk said the company's Starlink satellites were "under a lot of pressure, but holding up so far."
Should this storm intensify over the next day or two, scientists say the major risks include more widespread power blackouts, disabled satellites, and long-term damage of GPS networks.
When these coronal mass ejections reach Earth's magnetic field they change it, and can introduce significant currents into electricity lines and transformers, leading to damages or outages.
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