Sun, waiting for another magnetic storm for tonight

The Sun continues to be hyperactive and another magnetic storm is expected between tonight and tomorrow, after the two that occurred one after the other, yesterday and this night. The storm forecast for this evening, however, is not caused by solar eruptions like the previous ones, but by very fast bursts of the flow of particles emitted by the Sun, ie the solar wind ", solar physicist Mauro Messerotti, of the Trieste Observatory of the 'National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF), advisor for space weather of the scientific direction of INAF and the University of Trieste The gusts blow at a speed of 800 kilometers per second and between tonight and tomorrow they should hit the Earth. They are flung from regions in the outermost part of the Sun's atmosphere (corona) that appear darker because they emit less X and ultraviolet radiation. These regions are called coronal holes and the magnetic field lines have such a configuration that they accelerate the flow of particles emitted by our star. Phenomena like these, ie solar flares and magnetic storms more frequent than usual, observed the physicist, "are part of the normal evolution of the solar activity cycle" which lasts an average of 11 years and which is equivalent to the period between the minimum phase solar activity and the subsequent. The current cycle began in 2008 and its end is expected in 2018-2019. The current cycle - Messerotti noted - was characterized by modest activity and now we see a peak in the final phase, but it is not an exceptional case. We have seen other cycles with a similar evolution.

Sun, waiting for another magnetic storm for tonight 

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