Yesterday's X-class flare led to an increase in the flux of heavy charged particles (HCP) in near-Earth space, according to the Solar Astronomy Laboratory of the IKI and ISZF.
HCPs are usually understood to be protons with an energy of more than 10 MeV (megaelectronvolts – a unit of energy measurement). The speeds of such particles start from 1/10 the speed of light and higher; accordingly, they reach the Earth in about 1 hour and, thus, are one of the fastest components of the Sun's impact on the Earth. They are essentially only preceded by the hard radiation of the flare, which, as you can easily guess, propagates at the speed of light and reaches the Earth in 500 seconds.
HCPs can affect the operation of spacecraft, for the protection of which special measures are applied, such as shielding.
The current increase in HCP fluxes has increased approximately 50-fold, is not considered critical, and does not exceed the dangerous "red threshold", so no additional protection measures are required. By the morning of May 14, the proton fluxes began to decrease, exceeding the background level by 10–20 times, and are expected to normalize by tomorrow.
The arrival of plasma ejections to Earth under the current solar activity is impossible. The probability of magnetic storms and auroras in the near future is excluded.
Earlier, www1.ru reported that a flare of the penultimate power class was registered on May 14.
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