The scientist assessed the impact of the magnetic storm that began on March 20 on well-being

A G2–G3 magnetic storm that began on March 20 is not capable of directly affecting human well-being, but it can cause disruptions to communications and satellites. Sergey Chumakov, Doctor of Sciences and lecturer, told Izvestia about this.

"Storms of the second and third levels cannot be noticed by a person with the naked eye, much less felt — fluctuations in the Earth's magnetic field are too small for people to feel unwell. So blaming natural processes for your own laziness and headaches in this case will not work. However, problems may arise with radio communication during such moderate disturbances, as well as with the operation of satellites in high orbits," he said.

Chumakov clarified that the current magnetic storm was caused by a plasma cloud, a stream of charged particles ejected by the Sun. However, it does not apply to extreme events: the most severe storms are classified as G5 and occur much less frequently.

In addition, the Doctor of Sciences added that in recent years, storms of the G2–G3 level have occurred quite often, since the Earth is in a phase of high solar activity. According to him, such phenomena cannot be considered extraordinary, and in the coming years the activity of the Sun will gradually decline.

"In addition to solar flares, which provoke magnetic storms on Earth, similar phenomena can occur as a result of coronal mass ejections, when solar matter flows out of the longest and least dense layer of the solar atmosphere. They also occur from time to time, but they are somewhat more difficult to predict than solar flares," the scientist concluded.

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On the same day, at the Laboratory of Solar Astronomy of the Institute of Space Research (IKI) The Russian Academy of Sciences reported that the magnetic storm predicted for March 19 will begin later — on the afternoon of March 20 due to the later arrival of solar plasma to Earth. Initially, it was expected that the plasma clouds that appeared after the solar flare on March 16 would reach Earth on Thursday evening and cause magnetic storms of up to G3 strength. However, according to experts, the first signs of their approach were recorded around 4:00 Moscow time on Friday.

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