Severe solar flare causes intense radio bursts and widespread radio interference across North America

New sunspot AR2822 exploded May 7, producing an M3.9-class solar flare, one of the strongest flares of the young 25th solar cycle. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded the explosion near the northeast limb of the Sun:

The wave coming out of the explosion site is a “solar tsunami,” a stream of hot, magnetized plasma about 100,000 km high, carrying along the surface of the Sun at 250 km/s.

When such a shock wave passes through the solar atmosphere, it causes the solar plasma to oscillate, generating the natural radio emission detected by short-wave receivers on Earth.

Indeed, during the eruption, astronomer Thomas Ashcraft heard the roar of interference from the loudspeaker of his radio telescope in rural New Mexico.

“After a long quiet solar minimum, I’m glad I captured the M3.9 solar flare on May 7,” Ashcraft says. “It produced complex and dynamic Type II, V and III radio emissions at frequencies ranging from 15 MHz to 30 MHz.”

The flash’s ultraviolet and X-rays ionized the Earth’s upper atmosphere, especially over North America.

Radio operators and sailors could notice strange effects at frequencies below 30 MHz, and some transmissions at frequencies below 15 MHz disappeared completely.

Space weather usually affects technological systems and has potential consequences ranging from communications disruption to power grid failures.

The ability to predict space weather is an important warning tool so that we can try to mitigate and, in extreme cases, prevent disaster.

But according to a new study, space weather prediction is really only reliable one hour ahead…

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