Bastille Day solar storm
The Bastille Day solar storm was a powerful solar storm on 14-16 July 2000 during the solar maximum of solar cycle 23. The storm began on the national day of France, Bastille Day. It involved a solar flare, a solar particle event, and a coronal mass ejection which caused a severe geomagnetic storm. Overview Solar flare and particle event On 14 July 2000 from about 10:03 to 10:43 UTC, GOES satellites detected a very strong, X5.7-class, solar flare which peaked in soft X-ray intensity at around 10:24 UTC. This flare originated from the solar active region AR9077 which was located near the center of the Sun's disk (N22 W02) at the time of the flare. Starting at around 10:41 UTC, GOES satellites began detecting a strong, S3, solar particle event associated with the ongoing X5.7-class flare. This resulted in high energy protons penetrating and ionizing parts of the Earth's ionosphere and creating noise in various satellite imaging systems such as in the EIT and LASCO instruments. Some of these particles had sufficient energy to generate effects measured on Earth's surface, an event referred to as a ground level enhancement. Although the flare was not extremely large, the associated solar particle