Earth is likely to be hit by yet another powerful solar storm this week, which is forecast to cause radio blackouts and incredible displays of the northern lights.

Earlier this month, the sun unleashed its most powerful jets of plasma, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), in 20 years, causing outages and problems in radio frequencies, communications and satellites worldwide.

THE sunspot that caused this mess, appears to have dissipated again, unleashing a powerful flare toward Earth on Monday.

More specifically, the powerful geomagnetic storm that occurred on May 11, when the same sunspot “struck” our planet with dozens of activated plasma streams.

A solar or geomagnetic storm is a major disturbance of Earth’s magnetosphere – the region around Earth that is controlled by the planet’s magnetic field.

In fact, for the first time since 2005, a relevant announcement was made that the Earth was hit with the highest dose of radiation in half a century.

The unusual event earlier this month jammed GPS, power grids, farm equipment and satellites in orbit – and experts are watching to prepare.

The sunspot, labeled AR3664, has produced 17 flares this week, but the strongest has attracted worldwide attention.

“I have not seen such an explosion in the 40 years I have been observing the sunsaid the amateur astronomer Michael Karrerfrom Austria at SpaceWeather.

“So fast and so far into space! It was gigantic“, he added

Sunspot AR3664 is not currently pointing directly at Earth, but data suggests it will move toward it by the end of the week and could unleash solar storms toward the outer planet.

While the storms are not expected to reach the levels seen earlier this month, they are expected to cause a level three (R3) power outage that could last from minutes to hours and affect GPS systems and radio communication.

GPS systems “jam” because the radiation emitted by the solar flare hits the magnetic sphere surrounding the Earth, causing fluctuations in the ionosphere.

The ionosphere is a layer in the upper atmosphere that absorbs and reflects signals during geomagnetic storms, causing static and disturbances in the signals received by GPS systems.