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The South African National Space Agency (SANSA) says a strong geomagnetic storm is expected over the weekend that can disrupt communications and navigation systems and might cause the re-appearance of the Southern Lights over South African skies.
The origin of this storm is a solar flare that erupted from sunspot 3842 on Thursday, 3 October at 14h18.
SANSA says it is the strongest Earth-facing solar flare recorded in the past seven years and measured X9.05.
Solar flares are measured in five categories: A, B, C, M and X.
X is the strongest.
The X9 flare experienced on Thursday impacted high-frequency radio communications and led to a total radio blackout over the African region that lasted up to 20 minutes.
SANSA has been monitoring sunspot region 3842 since Sunday, 29 September 2024, when it appeared on the Sun's visible disk and is about 1,5 times larger than the Earth’s surface area.
The Sunspot produced several significant solar flares and associated coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which are waves of charged energetic particles. These waves of energetic particles will impact Earth over the weekend, causing geomagnetic storms.
