Scientists ponder ‘are we ready?’ for more solar storms after barrage in late spring

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Solar maximum indicates increased solar activity, Some of that activity can reach Earth’s atmosphere In early May, multiple coronal mass ejections, or large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the outermost part of the sun’s atmosphere, hurdled toward Earth. Scientists say they’re concerned about the impact of immense solar storms that have the power to affect satellites and astronauts in space, power grids on Earth, radio, and GPS “Last week and back in May, high frequency communications with aircraft were significantly impacted. open image in gallery NOAA’s first space-based operational coronagraph, CCOR-1, is designed to image the sun’s atmosphere and detect coronal mass ejections and other bursts of energy from the sun Earlier in the year, NOAA launched the GOES-19 satellite, which carries the nation’s first space-based operational coronagraph, which is a device designed to image the sun’s atmosphere and detect coronal mass ejections for space weather forecasting. Auroras are created when charged particles from the sun collide with Earth's atmosphere ) “We’re not expecting anything apocalyptic, but I do think we can see space weather events that are certainly a lot larger than we have seen and that could cause some problems with our power grids, satellites, communication systems, GPS, and other technologies that we rely on for everything we do today,” he said.