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This LASCO C2 image, taken 8 January 2002, shows a widely spreading coronal mass ejection (CME) as it blasts more than a billion tons of matter out into space at millions of kilometers per hour.
Credit: NASA/GSFC/SOHO/ESA, CC SA 2.0.
The sun is becoming more active and may reach peak activity sooner than 2025, perhaps reaching its peak by the end of this year.
Normally, the solar magnetic field acts as a shield, constraining solar radiation and reducing the risk of potentially harmful events like solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
At what is called the solar minimum, which is a low point in solar activity, the sun’s magnetic field is strong and organized, with two clear poles like a normal dipole magnet. This magnetic field acts as a “giant forcefield” that contains the sun’s superheated plasma, or ionized gas, close to the surface, suppressing solar activity.
Specifically, the solar maximum is the regular period of greatest solar activity during the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle. This period is also a potentially perilous time for Earth.
During a solar maximum, large solar storms will occur that can disrupt communications, damage power infrastructure, harm some living creatures (including astronauts), and send satellites plummeting toward the planet.
The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, lasting from September 1, to Sept. 2, in 1859 during solar cycle 10. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally and caused sparking and even fires in multiple telegraph stations.
A geomagnetic storm of this magnitude occurring today would cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage due to extended outages of the electrical power grid.
Originally, scientists predicted that the current solar cycle would peak in 2025. But a bumper crop of sunspots, solar storms, and rare solar phenomena suggest solar maximum could arrive by the end of this year at the earliest.
It’s “going to peak earlier and it’s going to peak higher than expected,” a solar physicist at the University of College London, Alex James, told Live Science.
This LASCO C2 image, taken 8 January 2002, shows a widely spreading coronal mass ejection (CME) as it blasts more than a billion tons of matter out into space at millions of kilometers per hour.
Source – NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. CC SA 2.0.
Solar flares and coronal mass ejections are examples of solar storms. When the storm breaks, it fires high-energy particles into space. On the off chance those particles strike Earth, they can cause a lot of damage.
For example, according to Business Insider, already this year a powerful solar flare caused widespread radio blackouts that disrupted high-frequency radio signals in North America, Central America, and South America.
In the past, powerful solar storms have surged the Quebec power grid, causing blackouts that lasted up to eight hours. Solar storms have also been linked to exploding sea mines and destroyed Starlink satellites.
This is a real image of a typical solar flare from our sun, from September 2005, captured in the X-ray waveband by NASA’s TRACE satellite.
Credit – NASA/LMSAL
Why experts think solar maximum will hit soon
When the sun’s magnetic field is weak, scientists are able to see a lot of interesting things going on at the sun’s surface.
For example, the solar surface develops temporary black blemishes called sunspots, which are regions where the magnetic field is especially strong in one area. The blemishes choke the flow of hot gasses from the sun’s interior to the surface, cooling that region and making it appear black.
And as if that is not enough, the powerful magnetism behind the sunspot can brew eruptions. As the sun grows more active, and its magnetic fields throb and tangle more wildly, scientists expect to see more sunspots and more of the solar flares and CMEs that can erupt from them.
So, by monitoring the number and frequency of sunspots, scientists can track the solar cycle and its progress toward maximum activity.
Corona Aurora in September 2008.
Credit: NASA/J Curtis of U Alaska/ACRC, CC SA 2.0.
In April 2019, the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel, which is made up of dozens of scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), released its forecast for Solar Cycle 25, suggesting that the solar maximum would likely begin sometime in 2025.
But from the beginning, the forecast seemed off. For instance, the number of observed sunspots has been much higher than predicted – way much higher.
In December 2022, the sun reached an eight-year sunspot peak. And in January 2023, scientists observed more than twice as many sunspots as NASA had predicted (143 observed versus 63 estimated), with the numbers staying nearly as high over the following months.
Actually, the number of observed sunspots has exceeded the predicted number for 27 months in a row. And the bottom line – most scientists will agree that we don’t want to get hit by a powerful solar storm.
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