Huge congrats to Ryan! If you aren't following him already, now is the time!

Total fearmongering here. This active region is nothing to worry about. It is literally just eye candy and has the potential for large flares. There is no way to predict a Carrington Event or even make the jump to one happening based on a complex sunspot group.

There’s a story going around about solar radiation causing a sudden drop in altitude on a Mexico-to-USA flight on October 30. A computer system on the aircraft apparently had an error which caused a nose down action without pilot input. But, is the root cause solar energetic particles (SEPs) from the Sun? Is space weather to blame? It could actually be real, but it’s hard to say. SEPs and radiation storms are probably the least-known space weather phenomena from a public-awareness perspective, and since they have little bearing on aurora, it’s what I am least-confident about. However, I’ll try and provide some basic information and context about what could have happened: First, let me plug I paper I wrote on space weather that has some basic information on SEPs and their effects. There are also some references inside the SEP section that are worth looking at: frontiersin.org/journals/ast… This “solar radiation” quoted in the article is probably referring to solar energetic particles which can affect the Earth especially shortly after solar flares and during CME impacts. These high-energy electrons and protons travel nearly the speed of light and can reach the Earth in minutes to hours after a solar flare occurs. High fluxes of these particles can cause radiation storms at Earth measured on the S-scale (S1 to S5; swpc.noaa.gov/phenomena/sola….) SEPs aren’t the only origin of high-energy particles, though. Galactic cosmic rays (GCRs) from supernova explosions bombard the Earth constantly and can cause similar effects to SEPs. These high-energy particles (both SEPs and GCRs) can penetrate our magnetic shield, especially over the poles. In outer space without the protection of our atmosphere, these particles pose a danger to crewed space missions. These high-energy particles may strike our atmosphere and cause secondary showers of particles that can travel down to flight-altitudes and even the ground. While it is rare, sensitive electronics may become disrupted by these high-energy particles entering the atmosphere. These disruptions are usually due to “single-event upsets” which can be simple bit flips in an electronic circuit. These minor flips in electronic signal can go unnoticed or cause real outcomes. For example, In 2003, a candidate for a local election in Belgium received 4096 additional votes as an event of a single event upset. Check out this video for some more info: m.youtube.com/watch?v=AaZ_RS… Disruptions to avionics systems are extremely rare to my knowledge, although in 2008, a Qantas Airlines flight suddenly entered a pitch-down maneuver at 38,000 due to SEPs, eerily similar to the story in the recent news. Aircraft manufacturers have built in robust systems to correct minor errors due to solar energetic particles and cosmic rays, but being in the wrong place at the wrong time may result in a very high-energy particle getting through and causing havoc. I was only made aware of this news story this morning, so I don’t know if it’s really what happened or not. To me, it seems possible that an GCR could have caused this sudden and major failure in the aircraft’s electronics. I don’t know if an SEP from the Sun (solar radiation) could have done this, because space weather conditions were entirely quiet at the time, and there was not a radiation storm taking place during the time of the flight. The main takeaways, assuming that this did happen due to a GCR or SEP, is that these events are very rare and you do not need to worry about this happening to you.