The sun undergoes cycles of activity that last approximately 11 years. Solar Cycle 25, which began in December 2019, was supposed to be calm and relatively mild. After all, the previous solar cycles 22, 23, and 24, which started in 1986, 1996, and 2008, respectively, were also relatively mild. Researchers naturally assume that Solar Cycle 25 would be more of the same.
Boy, was that wrong. Solar Cycle 25 has been one of the most active on record, and scientists who recently published their findings in Astrophysical Journal Letters say they can’t explain why.
When activity increases, we see tons of coronal mass injections, solar flares, and sunspots. It also results in the son’s poles reversing their polarity. It all sounds cataclysmic, but it’s actually relatively normal, expected even, but certainly not terribly predictable, though researchers do try.
The Sun Is Way More Active Than Usual, and Scientists Can’t Explain It
As you can imagine, predicting what the sun is going to do in the near future is incredibly difficult and imprecise. Based on how active the previous cycle was, which sought solar flares and coronal mass injections so powerful that they mildly disrupted life here on Earth.
The seeds of Solar Cycle 25’s activity were first planted way back at the beginning of Solar Cycle 24. While this cycle was relatively mild overall, solar winds did start to intensify slightly, and their impact grew over time across nearly every metric: speed, pressure, density, and magnetic field. This points to a larger, ongoing shift that sunspot counts alone don’t capture.
They do have a theory. They think it might be tied to something called the Hale Cycle, a longer 22-year rhythm in which the sun’s magnetic poles fully reverse. The idea is that the sun may undergo smaller individual cycles, but the Hale Cycle is a master cycle that governs these smaller ones. This would imply that we have been interpreting solar cycles all wrong, and we’ve been missing the bigger picture.
What does this all mean for us here on Earth? We’re going to get a lot more sunspots, solar flares, and coronal mass injections. Space weather is going to remain intense and maybe become a little bit more so than we’ve been used to over the past few decades.
While there might be some light satellite communications disruptions here and there, we are going to benefit in one way: the aurora borealis is going to be gorgeous. The auroras are directly influenced by solar activity.
The sun may be going wilder than usual, but at least our northern lights will be pretty and active.
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