The May 2024 solar storm that brought stunning displays of the Northern Lights across the world had more effects than just the aurora, it turns out. Recent findings suggest that satellites orbiting the Earth were eerily close to colliding, which would’ve resulted in chaos. The northern lights seen from the west side of Grand Rapids around 10:30 p.
m. on Friday, May 9, 2024. Joel Bissell | MLive.
com From May 7 through May 10, the strongest solar storm since 2003 occurred, according to space.com . The Space Weather Prediction Center ranks geomagnetic storms into five categories depending on their strength, with a G1 storm being the weakest and a G5 storm being the strongest.
This was classified as a G5 storm. During such strong events, the energy that is released from the sun that causes the aurora has rather significant effects on Earth’s atmosphere as well. When the solar particles enter the atmosphere, they interact with atmospheric particles, causing that region of the atmosphere to become more dense.
Satellites in orbit “feel” this change in density and have a hard time maintaining their altitude. As a result, they start to sink. Experts report that during the May storm, satellites were sinking toward Earth at roughly 600 feet per day.
During solar storms, solar particles interacting with the atmosphere causes satellites to feel "drag". This then causes them to start sinking and losing altitude since the atmosphere becomes more dense. Graphic provided by NOAA.
NOAA .