According to data from the US Atmosphere Agency NOAA, the number of sunspots is currently higher than it has been in more than 20 years. Since the frequency of sunspots is related to solar activity, there are also many solar storms – and depending on the direction, they can also be explosive for Earth. This can affect not only satellites, but even the power grid.
There will likely be more solar storms in the coming years, says Sami Solanki, director of the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS).
the magnetic field of the sun is stronger
Sunspots occur more frequently in a cycle of about eleven years. The sun is currently in solar cycle 25 and according to data from NOAA, the number of sunspots has already exceeded the previous maximum. “However, it should also be emphasized that cycle 24 was an extremely weak cycle,” Solanki said. The number of sunspots in all solar cycles is currently in an average range.
According to Solanki, a higher number of sunspots is a sign that the sun’s magnetic field is stronger and that the sun itself is more active. There will then be more mass ejections, simply ejecting part of the sun’s atmosphere into interplanetary space, the researcher said.
Hot matter from the inside
The German Aerospace Center (DLR) explains the formation of sunspots as follows: hot matter from the sun’s interior is constantly swirling to the surface. This process can be hindered by local amplifications of the Sun’s magnetic field. The result: Some colder spots appear on the surface of the sun, which become visible as sunspots.
“A sunspot consists of a very strong magnetic field. That is thousands of times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field,’ explains Solanki. “As a result, much less energy reaches the surface and much less can be radiated. And that’s why the spots appear dark.”
Aurora Borealis and power outages
The more sunspot experts discover, the greater the chance of solar flares. According to the European Space Agency ESA, high-energy particles with a size of several tens of billions of tons can be flung into space. They can also reach Earth within hours, some 150 million kilometers away. Earth’s protective shield, the magnetosphere, “is pulled apart like a soap bubble and can, so to speak, rupture.” The particles can then enter the magnetic field.
This could lead to “beautiful things like aurora borealis,” as well as damage to satellites, Solanki said. The collapse of an electricity grid is also possible. “It has happened before, usually at slightly higher latitudes. But we haven’t really had a major solar storm in the last 150 years. So it could get even worse,” the researcher emphasizes. Really big eruptions are rare. However, even with a few spots, “just a single huge spot” on the sun is enough, which with great magnetic energy could also cause a more dangerous eruption.
Impact on climate rather small
In contrast, the influence of solar storms on the Earth’s climate is small: “The brightness of the sun fluctuates with the number of sunspots, and there are several indications that such fluctuations have a small influence on the climate,” says Solanki. . “However, it is important to emphasize that such fluctuations in brightness have not contributed significantly to the rapid rise in global temperatures over the past 50 years.”
To improve the prediction of so-called space weather in the future, the European Space Agency is currently working on a satellite that, according to Solanki, should be launched in a few years. It is designed to measure the magnetic field of the sun.
Source: Krone
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