You could get more opportunities to see supercharged auroras over the next few months, thanks to our very active sun.
Solar activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. The current cycle, known as Solar Cycle 25, began in December 2019 and is still in its maximum phase, experts say.
“Currently, we’re about two years into the maximum period, so we’re anticipating another year or so of maximum phase before we really enter the declining phase, which will lead us back to solar minimum,” Lisa Upton, co-chair of the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel and lead scientist at Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, Texas, said in a press conference on Tuesday (Oct. 15).
Solar flares, CMEs and dancing auroras
Each solar cycle features a rise and fall in the sun’s natural magnetic activity, as well as the number of sunspots that develop. Sunspots, which are relatively cool and dark regions on our star’s face, arise when the magnetic field of the sun experiences a disturbance.
Related: ‘It was 3 hours of magic’: Spectacular auroras thrill stargazers (photos)
Sunspots serve as launch pads for solar flares, powerful explosions that blast high-energy light out into space. Flares are often accompanied by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), huge eruptions of magnetic field and plasma that can generate geomagnetic storms when they hit Earth. Those storms can boost auroral displays, as people around the world saw last week. But they can also have negative impacts, disrupting power grids on Earth and affecting astronauts and satellites in space.
Solar Cycle 25 has featured a more prominent maximum phase than its predecessor but is still considered a smaller cycle by forecasters, according to Upton.
“Smaller cycles are long, so their maximum phases are longer, lasting three or four years,” she said. Such cycles are “also more likely to have a double or even triple peak, which makes it more difficult to say for certain that maximum has occurred.”
During solar maximum, there’s a higher possibility of impacts from space weather to Earth. A great example of this occurred with the solar storms of May 2024, when several CMEs slammed into our planet, triggering what scientists say may have been the most powerful aurora display in the past 500 years.
“Solar Cycle 25 sunspot activity has slightly exceeded expectations; however, despite seeing a few large storms, they aren’t larger than what we might…
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