The northern lights have lit up the night sky providing a unique sight in the UK, Europe such as Germany, Iceland, Finland, Sweden, US states, Canada and the northern hemisphere in general.

However, in addition to spectacular images, the solar storm has already created problems and is likely to create more. Starlink, a subsidiary of Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which deals with satellites, warned today of the possibility of “degradation of its services”.

Starlink owns about 60% of the approximately 7,500 satellites in orbit around the earth and has a dominant position in satellite internet.

Musk said earlier in a post on X that Starlink satellites are significantly affected by the geomagnetic storm, but so far they are still operating smoothly.

There were some power outages in Sweden and it damaged transformers in South Africa, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported.

The last time a solar storm of this size reached Earth was in October 2003.

The Aurora phenomenon

The Aurora phenomenon occurs when charged particles collide with gases in the Earth’s atmosphere around the magnetic poles. Generally, it takes just eight minutes for light to travel the 93 million miles to Earth from the sun, but astrophysicist Janna Levin said the activated particles causing the current aurora wave travel much more slowly, causing the phenomenon to last through the weekend .

“Some of these mass ejections are trillions of kilograms,” he said. “They are slower. So it takes more, but still hours, maybe tens of hours.”

Generally, it takes just eight minutes for light to travel the 93 million miles to Earth from the sun, but astrophysicist Janna Levin said the activated particles causing the current aurora wave travel much more slowly, causing the phenomenon to last through the weekend .

“Some of these mass ejections are trillions of kilograms,” he said. “They are slower. So it takes more hours, maybe tens of hours.”