Sunspot Unearthed with Potential to Disrupt Earth’s Power Grids, Prompting ‘One-Week Alert’

NASA has come across an enormous sunspot on the sun, with projections indicating that its growth is likely to persist as it traverses the sun’s surface, aligning with Earth in a matter of days.

Experts are sounding an alarm about this sunspot’s dark expanse, cooler than its surroundings, as they anticipate potential energetic eruptions in the upcoming week. These explosions carry the capability to disrupt and even disable Earth’s power grids.

NASA captured images of the sunspot while it rests over 152 million miles away from the sun, although its precise dimensions remain unknown. The sunspot came into view between August 17 and August 20, coinciding with the exploration of the Jezero Crater on Mars.

In a blog post by Spaceweather, it was mentioned, “Because Mars is orbiting over the far side of the sun, Perseverance can see approaching sunspots more than a week before we do. Consider this your one-week warning: A big sunspot is coming.” These images of the sunspot have been converted into an animation that depicts a subdued sun suspended against the backdrop of space, featuring a blurred, dark formation traversing its surface.

As stated by Spaceweather, “It takes a large sunspot to show up in these low-resolution images.” Sunspots denote regions where the magnetic field’s strength is approximately 2,500 times greater than that of Earth’s, a magnitude significantly higher than in any other part of the sun, as clarified by the National Weather Service.

Solar flares have the potential to erupt from the sun’s surface with the energy equivalent of around 2.5 million nuclear bombs. When these flares, also referred to as geomagnetic storms, impact Earth, they can disrupt radio waves and lead to some power disruptions.

Though solar flares are not uncommon, they tend to be more frequent during specific phases of an approximately 11-year cycle. Scientists project that the next peak in this cycle will occur in 2025.

The intensity of the upcoming cycle remains uncertain, often gauged by the number of sunspots on the sun’s surface at a given time. Less frequent sunspots usually mark the culmination of a cycle. Lower-than-average sunspot counts generally suggest fewer potent storms within the cycle, according to expert predictions.