In the night from May 4 to May 5, a moderate-class geomagnetic storm, level G2, hit Earth. The source of the disturbance was a coronal mass ejection that the Sun produced back on April 30. This was reported by specialists from the Laboratory of Solar Astronomy of IKI and ISZF.
Despite the weak intensity of the event and an almost week-long journey through interplanetary space, the plasma cloud maintained its structure and, upon reaching the planet's magnetosphere, caused a noticeable reaction.
Scientists admit that they expected the ejection to dissipate over such a long journey, but the coronal mass did not break apart and smoothly reached Earth. As a result, auroras were observed at high latitudes, reaching approximately 8 points on a ten-point scale at their peak activity.
Current flare activity on the visible side of the Sun remains low: there are many sunspots on the disk, but the flares themselves occur rarely and mostly belong to weak classes.
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