CLOSE The bad news: A solar flare could mean disturbances in satellites and radio transmissions. The good news: A flare could also mean an expansion of the aurora borealis! Host Carly Mallenbaum talks about the impact of the strong solar storm. (USA TODAY, USA NOW) 
 
 A false-color image of the sun shows the solar flare erupting in the center of the sun on Wednesday. (Photo: Solar Dynamics Observatory) 
 
 A "strong" solar flare that launched off the sun Wednesday afternoon could cause some fluctuations in Earth's power grid and slight disturbances in satellites and radio transmissions on Friday and Saturday. 
 
 Major disruptions are not expected, even though the flare was classified as an "X-class" flare, which is at the high end of the solar flare scale. Wednesday's flare followed a weaker flare late Monday. 
 
 "We expect geomagnetic storm levels in the G2 (moderate) and G3 (strong) range," said Bill Murtagh, space weather forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 
 
 "G2-G3 geomagnetic storms can cause some problems for the (power) grid but are typically very manageable," Murtagh said in an e-mail Thursday morning. "We may also see some anomalies with satellites so satellite operators around the world have been notified. And problems with the accuracy of GPS have been observed with this level of storming." 
 
 Forecasters with NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colo., said the flare "caused impacts to high-frequency radio communications on Earth" Wednesday afternoon. 
 
 Intense flares such as the one that erupted Wednesday are often associated with coronal mass ejections, or "CME"s. A coronal mass ejection contains billions of tons of energetic hydrogen and helium ions as well as magnetic fields ejected from the sun's surface. 
 
 Though this CME will hit the Earth, this CME isn't big enough or impressive enough to cause a more disruptive geomagnetic storm. But "any additional eruptions in the next few days will likely produce more disturbances in our geomagnetic field," Murtagh added. 
 
 It was "fairly rare" for the two CMEs (Monday evening and midday Wednesday) to come so close in succession, said Thomas Berger, the director of the Space Weather Prediction Center 
 
 SPACE CENTRAL 
 
 At the Space Weather Prediction Center in Colorado, phones ring constantly, as scientists consult with their colleagues around the world, and with their Defense Department counterparts in Nebraska, who monitor the effects on spy satellites and other classified equipment. 
 
 Screens display images of the sun in a variety of formats, from the familiar orange-yellow we're used to seeing to otherwise invisible radiation steaming toward us. The Earth's magnetic field protects us from the worst of the impacts, but the particles also affect the field, and thus our electronics. 
 
 Forecaster Chris Smith takes a call from a Civil Air Patrol group in the Midwest wondering whether the flare will affect their planned weather balloon launch. 
 
 "You'll still be within the protection of the Earth's atmosphere, so you should be OK," Smith advises. "But if you can hold off a day, that's not a bad idea." 
 
 Depending on how strongly it hits the earth, the flare's impacts could interfere with some radio signals and slightly alter GPS readings. "Folks driving down the road wouldn't notice much difference," said Murtagh. 
 
 NIGHT LIGHTS 
 
 One nice side effect of the solar storm is an expansion of the photogenic aurora borealis, or Northern Lights, across Canada and the northern U.S. 
 
 People in northern New England, the far northern Plains, and the Pacific Northwest should have the best views of the aurora. The best views should be Friday night, but some auroras could be visible Thursday night. 
 
 YOUR TAKE: Share your aurora photos 
 
 The Northern Lights appear when atoms in the Earth's high-altitude atmosphere collide with energetic charged particles from the sun. They usually appear as shimmering green waves of light in the nighttime sky in polar latitudes. Much more rarely, they can be red and even blue. 
 
 Contributing: Trevor Hughes, Elizabeth Weise; and Associated Press 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1rX5vjJ ||||| 'Dramatic' solar flare could disrupt Earth communications 
 
 WASHINGTON — An unusual solar flare observed by a NASA space observatory on Tuesday could cause some disruptions to satellite communications and power on Earth over the next day or so, officials said. 
 
 The potent blast from the Sun unleashed a firestorm of radiation on a level not witnessed since 2006, and will likely lead to moderate geomagnetic storm activity by Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service. 
 
 "This one was rather dramatic," said Bill Murtagh, program coordinator at the NWS's Space Weather Prediction Center, describing the M-2 (medium-sized) solar flare that peaked at 1:41 am Eastern time in the United States, or 0541 GMT. 
 
 "We saw the initial flare occurring and it wasn't that big but then the eruption associated with it -- we got energy particle radiation flowing in and we got a big coronal mass injection," he said. 
 
 "You can see all the materials blasting up from the Sun so it is quite fantastic to look at." 
 
 NASA's solar dynamics observatory, which launched last year and provided the high-definition pictures and video of the event, described it as "visually spectacular," but noted that since the eruption was not pointed directly at Earth, the effects were expected to remain "fairly small." 
 
 "The large cloud of particles mushroomed up and fell back down looking as if it covered an area of almost half the solar surface," said a NASA statement. 
 
 Murtagh said space weather analysts were watching closely to see whether the event would cause any collision of magnetic fields between the Sun and Earth, some 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) apart. 
 
 "Part of our job here is to monitor and determine whether it is Earth-directed because essentially that material that is blasting out is gas with magnetic field combined," he told AFP. 
 
 "In a day or so from now we are expecting some of that material to impact us here on Earth and create a geomagnetic storm," he said. 
 
 "We don't expect it to be any kind of a real severe one but it could be kind of a moderate level storm." 
 
 The Space Weather Prediction Center said the event is "expected to cause G1 (minor) to G2 (moderate) levels of geomagnetic storm activity tomorrow, June 8, beginning around 1800 GMT." 
 
 Any geomagnetic storm activity will likely be over within 12-24 hours. 
 
 "The Solar Radiation Storm includes a significant contribution of high energy protons, the first such occurrence of an event of that type since December 2006," the NWS said. 
 
 As many as 12 satellites and spacecraft are monitoring the heliosphere, and one instrument in particular on board NASA's lunar reconnaissance orbiter is measuring radiation and its effects. 
 
 "Certainly over the (two-year) lifetime of the mission this is the most significant event," said Harlan Spence, principal investigator for the cosmic ray telescope for the effects of radiation, or CRaTER. 
 
 "This is really exciting because ironically when we were developing the mission initially we thought we would be launching closer to a solar maximum when these big solar particle events typically occur," Spence told AFP. 
 
 "Instead we launched into a historic solar minimum that took a long, long time to wake up," he said. 
 
 "This is interesting and significant because it shows the Sun is returning to its more typical active state." 
 
 The resulting geomagnetic storm could cause some disruption in power grids, satellites that operate global positioning systems and other devices, and may lead to some rerouting of flights over the polar regions, Murtagh said. 
 
 "Generally it is not going to cause any big problems, it will just have to be managed," he said. 
 
 "If you fly from the United States to Asia, flying over the North Pole, there are well over a dozen flights every day," he added. 
 
 "During these big radiation storms some of these airlines will reroute the flights away from the polar regions for safety reasons to make sure they can maintain communications. 
 
 "People operating satellites would keep an eye on this, too, because geomagnetic storming can interfere with satellites in various ways whether it is the satellite itself or the signal coming down from the receiver." 
 
 The aurora borealis (Northern Lights) and aurora australis (Southern Lights) will also likely be visible in the late hours of June 8 or 9, NASA said. 
 
 Copyright © 2011 AFP. All rights reserved. More » ||||| This image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the sun as it unleashed an X5.4-class solar flare at 7:04 p.m. EST on March 6, 2012 (0002 March 7 GMT). The flare appears as the bright spot in the upper left. 
 
 This story was updated at 6:58 a.m. EST. 
 
 The biggest solar storm in five years is battering our planet right now, and may cause disruptions to satellites, power grids and communications networks over the next 24 hours, space weather experts say. 
 
 Two strong solar flares erupted from the surface of the sun late Tuesday (March 6), blasting a wave of plasma and charged particles toward Earth. After speeding through space at 4 million mph, this eruption of material — called a coronal mass ejection (CME) — should be hitting Earth now. 
 
 The storm is expected to create strong disruptions due to an odd combination of intense magnetic, radio and radiation emissions, making it the strongest overall solar storm since December 2006, even though the flare that triggered it was not the largest, space weather officials said. 
 
 The CME reached Earth this morning at about 5:45 a.m. EST (1045 GMT), according to officials at the Space Weather Prediction Center, which is jointly managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Weather Service. While the CME did not hit Earth head-on, the material delivered a glancing blow to the planet, and energetic particles will continue to interact with Earth's magnetic field over the course of the day. 
 
 The CME will likely trigger geomagnetic and solar radiation storms today, which could interfere with satellites in space and power grids on the ground, said Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist at NOAA. Aircraft that fly over the Earth's polar caps may potentially experience communications issues as well, and some commercial airliners have already taken precautionary steps, Kunches said. 
 
 "There is the potential for induced currents in power grids," Kunches told reporters Wednesday. "Power grid operators have all been alerted. It could start to cause some unwanted induced currents." 
 
 The effects of this solar storm will likely last for 24 hours, and may possibly linger into Friday (March 9), Kunches said. 
 
 "Such a CME could result in a severe geomagnetic storm, causing aurora at low latitudes, with possible disruption to high frequency radio communication, global positioning systems (GPS), and power grids," NASA scientists said in a statement. 
 
 Experts also predict that the magnetic storm will likely enhance normal aurora displays (also known as the northern and southern lights). As the effects of the CME bombard Earth, these stunning light shows will be especially visible for people where it is currently night, though the full moon of March, which also occurs Thursday, may interfere with the display. 
 
 "Skywatchers at all latitudes should be alert for auroras," astronomer Tony Phillips wrote on his website Spaceweather.com, which regularly monitors space weather events. 
 
 If you snap an amazing photo of the northern lights sparked by these sun storms and would like to share it for a possible story or image gallery, please contact SPACE.com managing editor Tariq Malik at tmalik@space.com. 
 
 You can follow SPACE.com staff writer Denise Chow on Twitter @denisechow. Follow SPACE.com for the latest in space science and exploration news on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.
– If by chance your GPS is acting a little weird tomorrow or Saturday, this might be why: A relatively big solar storm is coming our way, reports USA Today. Scientists say no major disruptions in the power grid are expected, but satellite operators are on alert. The sun unleashed a solar flare yesterday that registers on the "extreme" end of the forecasting scale, though the worst of it was expected to miss Earth, reports AP. Yesterday's flare followed a weaker one the day before. The result will be a geomagnetic storm classified as G2 tomorrow, followed by a more intense G3 storm on Saturday, reports the Washington Post. "G2-G3 geomagnetic storms can cause some problems for the (power) grid but are typically very manageable," says a forecaster for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "We may also see some anomalies with satellites," he adds, "and problems with the accuracy of GPS have been observed with this level of storming." A better side effect: Residents in northern states should be treated to pretty skies at night. (A massive solar flare in 2012 might have zapped us back to the Stone Age had it come a little closer to Earth.)