Intense solar storm shakes Earth’s core, travels to bottom of ocean

The intensity of the recent solar storm which had filled the skies of Earth with Northern Lights in May 2024 was so huge that its effects travelled to the bottom of the ocean.

In the magnetic compasses, which were used by Ocean Networks Canada (ONC) for monitoring the ocean off Canada's coast, a major distortionwas recorded in the magnetic field of Earth because it was buffeted by a strong influx of particles released by the Sun.

Measuring these powerful solar storms will help scientists determine what are they dealing with when similar solar eruptions occur during solar storms in the future. The data will also help scientists understand how Earth is getting affected by such solar storms.

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"The next two years will be the peak of the 11-year solar cycle. After a decade of relative inactivity, aurora events like this past weekend are likely to become more frequent over the next couple of years, although solar variability makes precise prediction of such events impossible,"said physicist Justin Albert, who is from the University of Victoria in Canada, while speaking to Science Alert.

"ONC's network might provide a very helpful additional window into the effects of solar activity on the Earth's terrestrial magnetism," he added.

Why has Sun been so active lately?

Solar storms, which are also called geomagnetic storms, are among those activities of the Sun which have the biggest impact on Earth.

Solar storms occur when an eruption takes place on the Sun's surface and ejects billions of tonnes of material which aretangled up with magnetic fields at high speed in the Solar System.

When the Sun's coronal mass ejection (CME) reaches Earth's surface, the particles hit the magnetic field and then they become entangled and accelerated till they are dumped in our atmosphere. The sparkling aurora is created by the interactions with other particles.

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Recently, the Sun has been particularly active since it is escalating towards a solar maximum and will reach its peak in its 11-year activity cycle.

It was first noticed by ONC data specialist Alex Slonimer in the compass data back in March.

"I looked into whether it was potentially an earthquake, but that didn't make a lot of sense because the changes in the data were lasting for too long and concurrently at different locations,"Slonimer said.

"Then, I looked into whether it was a solar flare as the sun has been active recently," he added.

(With inputs from agencies)