'Cannibal' coronal mass ejection will hit Earth at nearly 2 million mph, scientists say

By Ben Turner published about 2 hours ago

The Northern Lights could be visible as far south as Pennsylvania and Oregon.



A massive coronal mass ejection erupting from the sun in 2017. (Image credit: NASA)


The dazzling northern lights could light up the skies as far south as the northern United States after the detection of 17 solar eruptions blasting from a single sunspot, two of which are headed straight to Earth.

Two of those eruptions triggered a "cannibal coronal mass ejection" which has begun barreling toward the Earth at 1,881,263 mph (3,027,599 km/h). When it crashes into the Earth's magnetic field on the night of March 30, the result will be a powerful G3 geomagnetic storm, according to The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Space Weather Prediction Center (SWPC). G3 storms are classified as strong geomagnetic storms, meaning that the oncoming sun blast could bring the aurora as south as Pennsylvania, Iowa and Oregon.

The sunspot, called AR2975, has been shooting out flares of electrically charged particles from the sun's plasma soup since Monday (March 28). Sunspots are areas on the sun's surface where powerful magnetic fields, created by the flow of electrical charges, knot into kinks before suddenly snapping. The resulting release of energy launches bursts of radiation called solar flares, or explosive jets of solar material called coronal mass ejections (CMEs).

Cannibal coronal mass ejections happen when fast-moving solar eruptions overtake earlier eruptions in the same region of space, sweeping up charged particles to form a giant, combined wavefront that triggers a powerful geomagnetic storm.

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