Will the Sun’s magnetic field reverse? Understand the solar cycle

At the risk of falling into pleonasm, we can say that it is hot in the Sun these days. Information from the GOES geostationary satellite reported that powerful solar flares constantly occur on Earth, causing frequent radio blackouts.. One of these, released in December, was rated by NASA as the most powerful in the last six years.

However, all these activities This is part of an 11-year cycle in which the poles of our star shift. This is because solar activity waxes and wanes during this period, known as the Schwabe cycle, named after the German astronomer who discovered this periodicity by counting the number of sunspots observed between 1826 and 1843.

Over the course of 11 years, he noticed that the Sun went from a calm period in which there were no sunspots to its maximum phase, when groups of 20 or more sunspots could be counted. According to this theory, the polar reversal will occur in 2025, but a group of scientists suggest that it will happen this year.

How do solar cycles work?

Polarity reversal occurs due to changes in the Sun’s magnetic structure. During solar minimum, it has a bipolar shape, a configuration in which the star’s north and south magnetic poles are relatively well defined and aligned with its spin axis. At this stage, the open magnetic flux goes from the polar regions into interplanetary space.

The solar maximum is a more complex structure, characterized by the presence of active regions at low latitudes and the weakening of polar fields. This results in messy and often disorganized areas of open space. The scenario is ripe for an increase in solar flares, coronal mass ejections and other explosive events.

According to NASA, this is because “the Sun’s magnetic fields burst through the convection zone, through the photosphere, and into the chromosphere and corona.” The solar activity caused by these explosions causes significant effects on satellite communication and navigation systems as well as space activities around the Earth.

Sunspots: Areas where the Sun’s magnetic field is strongest

As the magnetic field rises towards the Sun’s surface, usually towards the star’s equatorial regions, it manifests as sunspots. A sunspot appears “dark” because the increased magnetism prevents heat from passing into the area. Therefore this region is “colder” (only 4 thousand degrees Celsius) and shines less brightly than the rest of the Sun.

Each stain comes in pairs: one magnetically positive, the other magnetically negative. Most of these pairs dissolve as sunspots decay, but they leave a residue of magnetic flux from one charge or another.

These “leftovers” have a polarity opposite to the poles of the solar hemisphere where they normally appear. Thus, as this material orbits the Sun, these remnants migrate towards the pole of the hemisphere where they appear, canceling out some of the magnetic field present there..

At what point in the solar cycle are we currently?

However, the big question arises: At what point in the solar cycle are we now? As all environmental satellite indicators show, the Sun’s activity is increasing day by day. The next solar maximum is predicted to occur between January and October this year.

But a team of researchers, who have made better solar predictions than NASA has in the past, believe they have more accurate predictions. They propose a new way to predict solar cycles based on events called “terminators.” These occurrences are based on bursts of solar activity at the end of one cycle, where one activity cancels out another..

This terminating event, called the halo cycle (equivalent to two solar cycles), occurs up to two years after the minimum. “If you measure the length of a cycle from terminator to terminator, rather than from minimum to minimum, you will see that there is a strong linear relationship between the length of one cycle and how strong the next one will be,” he explains. NASA researcher. Robert Leamon to Space.com. This method predicts the change in the solar magnetic field months before the solar maximum, that is, in mid-2024.

Did you like the content? So stay up to date with more curiosities about our parent star like at TecMundo and take the opportunity to find out if the Sun is making any kind of movement in the Solar System.