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Every 11 years or so, our Sun tends to get its knickers twisted and cycles from minimum to maximum activity levels.<\/p>\n
At solar minimum, the sun’s magnetic field is strong and organized, with two clear poles like a normal dipole magnet, James said. The magnetic field acts as a “giant forcefield” that contains the sun’s superheated plasma, or ionized gas, close to the surface, suppressing solar activity, he added.<\/p>\n
But the magnetic field slowly gets tangled, with some regions becoming more magnetized than others, James said. As a result, the sun’s magnetic field gradually weakens, and solar activity begins to ramp up: Plasma rises from the star’s surface and forms massive magnetized horseshoes, known as coronal loops, that pepper the sun’s lower atmosphere. These fiery ribbons can then snap as the sun’s magnetic field realigns, releasing bright flashes of light and radiation, known as solar flares<\/u>. Sometimes, flares also bring enormous, magnetized clouds of fast-moving particles, known as coronal mass ejections<\/u> (CMEs).<\/p>\n
A few years after the maximum, the sun’s magnetic field “snaps” and then completely flips.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Throwing out solar flares, flipping magnetic fields – what could go wrong?<\/p>\n
Another key indicator of solar activity is the number and intensity of solar flares. In 2022, there were fivefold more C-class and M-class solar flares than there were in 2021, and year on year, the number of the most powerful, X-class solar flares is also increasing, according to SpaceWeatherLive.com<\/u>. The first half of 2023 logged more X-class flares than in all of 2022, and at least one has directly hit Earth<\/u>. (Solar flare classes include A, B, C, M and X, with each class being at least 10 times more powerful than the previous one.)<\/p>\n
Solar flares can also bring geomagnetic storms \u2014 major disturbances of Earth’s magnetosphere caused by solar wind or CMEs. For instance, on March 24, a “stealth” CME hit Earth without warning and triggered the most powerful geomagnetic storm in more than six years<\/u>, which created vast auroras, or northern lights, that were visible in more than 30 U.S. states. An overall increase in the number of geomagnetic storms this year has also caused the temperature in the thermosphere \u2014 the second-highest layer of Earth’s atmosphere ? to reach a 20-year peak<\/u>.<\/p>\n
The chances of a once-in-a-century superstorm, such as the Carrington Event<\/a> in 1859 also slightly increase during solar maximum, Fang said. While a long shot, such a storm could cause trillions of dollars’ worth of damage and majorly impact everyday life, she added.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n