The Halloween storm of 2003 was one of the significant events for Earth’s history. However, the storm was not a storm in traditional sense of a weather-related event. It refers to a series of powerful solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) originating from the Sun. These energetic eruptions hurled massive amounts of charged particles towards Earth, triggering a geomagnetic storm.
Impacts of the Halloween storm on Earth’s geography are as follows:
- The storm caused intense auroras, also known as northern and southern lights, to be visible at unusually low latitudes, colourful displays were seen as far south as Florida and Texas in the US, and in parts of Europe.
- The charged particles disrupted the magnetosphere, the Earth’s magnetic field. This, in turn, affected satellites in orbit, causing malfunctions and data loss in some cases.
- Strong currents induced in power grids by the geomagnetic storm led to power outages in some regions.
The Halloween Storm serves as a reminder about understanding and monitoring solar activity to mitigate potential risks to technological infrastructure and communication systems. In such scenario Aditya L1 mission by India to study solar activity is a step in right direction.
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