Earth is currently being battered by solar storm that could hit power grids and satellites

This storm could affect satellites, power grids and some spacecraft with energetic particles. It’s being caused by a solar flare that occurred on February 12 in the sun’s atmosphere following a massive explosion.
Particles from the flare are to blame for the possible disruption. Bill Murtagh, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said: ‘Depending how the CME and the Earth’s magnetic field couple, those energetic particles will come flowing in, penetrating into the atmosphere and striking the atoms and molecules in our atmosphere’
 ‘Those energetic particles excite the atoms in our atmosphere [like oxygen and nitrogen], stripping electrons away from them, and that causes them to light up.’

But there will be some positives as the storm could also lead to the formation of auroras (Northern Lights) in Britain and northern parts of the United States, according to NOAA.




 It might have also have been much worse as the solar storm is only a G-1/G-2 storm, which is the one of the weakest possible (S storms are the most severe). The storms can also sometimes cause clouds of plasma to be pushed towards the Earth. Mr Murtagh added: ‘These coronal mass ejections are a big blast of up to a billion tons of plasma gas.’