Erupting 12,000-mile-deep ‘canyon of fire’ has opened on the Sun – and it could cause northern lights this week

A HUGE arc of electrified gas has burst from the Sun, spewing out solar radiation that’s heading straight for Earth.

The solar filament – a curve of plasma in the star’s atmosphere – is at least 12,400 miles (20,000 km) deep and 10 times as long.

Nasa SDOA solar filament caught by Nasa telescopes on Sunday led to the eruption of radiation that could trigger showings of the Northern Lights[/caption]

According to SpaceWeather.com, which tracks the Sun’s activity, fragments emerging from the blast site are coming this way.

They’re known as Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and are expected to arrive on Wednesday.

Once they reach Earth, they will trigger what is known as a geomagnetic storm – a largely harmless disturbance of the magnetic field.

At the extreme end of the spectrum, geomagnetic storms can disrupt satellites and even briefly knock out power grids.

However, smaller storms like those expected as a result of the filament pose no danger to technology on Earth.

Instead, the radioactive jolts trigger showings of the Northern Lights by energising particles in the atmosphere.

Images of the filament – described as a “canyon of fire” by U.S. astronomer Dr Tony Phillips, who runs SpaceWeather – were captured by Nasa’s Solar Dynamics Observatory on Sunday.

A second filament appeared on Monday, according to space weather trackers.

The Met Office confirmed that two “filament eruptions” occurred in the south-central part of the sun.

“Magnetic filaments are plasma-filled tubes of magnetism that meander through the sun’s atmosphere,” Dr Phillips explained.

“They easily become unstable and erupt, hurling fragments of themselves into space.

“A CME from just such an eruption is due to graze Earth’s magnetic field on April 6.”

Geomagnetic storms are caused by CMEs and solar flares, which are huge expulsions of hot material called plasma from the Sun’s outer layer.

They can lead to the appearance of colourful auroras by energising particles in our planet’s atmosphere

Each solar storm is graded by severity on a scale of one to five, with a G1 described as “minor” and a G5 as “extreme”.

At the upper end of the scale, storms wreak havoc on our planet’s magnetic field, which can disrupt power grids and communications networks.

“Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground,” Nasa says.

“However – when intense enough – they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel.”

Thankfully, this week’s geomagnetic storms are unlikely to significantly impact life or technology on Earth.

In the past, larger solar flares have wreaked havoc on our planet.

In 1989, a strong solar eruption shot so many electrically charged particles at Earth that the Canadian Province of Quebec lost power for nine hours.

As well as causing issues for our tech, they can cause harm to astronauts working on the International Space Station, either through radiation exposure or by interfering with mission control communications.

The Earth’s magnetic field helps to protect us from the more extreme consequences of solar flares.

The sun is currently at the start of a new 11-year solar cycle, which usually sees eruptions and flares grow more intense and extreme.

These events are expected to peak around 2025 and it’s hoped Nasa’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft will observe them all as it aims to fly within 26 million miles of the sun.

ESAA giant solar eruption was captured by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft in February[/caption]

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