Over the past few days an active sunspot has erupted multiple times, sending clouds of high-energy plasma into space. The sunspot happens to be facing Earth just now, so the plasma clouds are heading in our direction.
At about 0200 UTC (that’s 1pm AEDT) on November 12, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Australian Bureau of Meteorology reported large disturbances in Earth’s magnetic field due to the solar eruptions: a G4, or severe, geomagnetic storm.
