Solar maximum increases chances of auroras.

The sun is awake.

Earth’s star has become more active in recent months, with giant flares erupting from the surface and streams of plasma and charged particles spewing into space. Several solar storms have been directed towards our planet, causing intense magnetic storms and the dazzling glow of the aurora borealis.

Experts say a storm of solar explosions after years of relative calm and calm is a sure sign that the star has entered a busy phase of its natural cycle, or solar maximum.

The active period is likely to continue into next year, with the potential for more solar storms and spectacular aurora borealis.

“This is definitely the season for major solar storms,” ​​said Kelly Kolek, a program scientist in NASA’s Heliophysics Division. “I think we’ll see the sky lit up again by the northern lights.”

Later this month, NASA will get a close-up look at intense solar activity when the agency’s Parker Solar Probe makes its closest approach ever to the sun on December 24th.

The spacecraft is on an orbit that swoops to within 3.86 million miles of the Sun’s surface. This is closer than any other artifact in history. It is predicted that it could fly through the sun’s plasma plumes and fly into the star’s active regions.

“If you think of an American football field, if the Earth is on one side and the sun is on the other side, this is like going to the sun’s 4-yard line,” Kolek said.

The Parker Solar Probe was launched in 2018 with a mission to study the sun’s atmosphere, an extremely hot region known as the corona. Last month, the car-sized spacecraft flew nearby in a maneuver that helped slingshot Venus closer to the sun.

Kolek said the spacecraft’s close encounters could provide valuable insights, especially if there are active sunspot regions (temporary features that appear as dark scratches on the sun’s surface) along its path. He said there is. Such observations could help researchers better understand how the sun’s activity rises and falls.

Solar cycles typically last about 11 years, as the Sun’s magnetic activity moves from periods of low to high magnetic activity. When a star emerges from its calm phase, or solar minimum, and reaches the peak of its solar cycle, its magnetic poles reverse and it enters solar maximum, increasing activity and erupting more frequently and violently.

The main way scientists know when the Sun has reached its maximum is by monitoring the formation of sunspots. As the sun spins, its magnetic field undulates, becoming distorted and tighter in some areas, Kolek said. This creates sunspots, which appear as dark specks in telescope images.

“The sun is a magnetic sphere, but it’s not a solid solid body, so as it rotates, its magnetic field gets twisted,” Kolek said.

the number of sunspots It increases steadily as the star moves towards its solar maximum. Once a significant decline is observed, researchers can define the beginning and end of a period of activity.

In some sunspot regions, the magnetic field can be about 2,500 times stronger than Earth’s magnetic field. According to NASA. Over time, sunspots can release vast amounts of stored magnetic energy in the form of solar storms.

This year, two major solar storms (one in May and one in early October) painted the night sky in bright pinks, greens, and purples as far south as Texas and Alabama. It surprised sky watchers. NASA said the May event was the strongest geomagnetic storm to hit Earth in the past 20 years.

Auroras occur when clouds of charged particles ejected from the Sun during solar storms collide with Earth’s magnetic field and interact with atoms and molecules in Earth’s upper atmosphere. The colorful display is a beautiful byproduct of that process and is usually only seen at high latitudes. But during periods of high solar activity, the light can wander farther south than usual.

However, there may also be negative consequences. Strong magnetic storms can cause problems for astronauts in space and for GPS systems and satellites in orbit.