The sun's magnetic field is about to flip for first time in 11 years
The sun is on the verge of hitting a huge 11-year peak where its magnetic field flips, which means that there will be an explosive amount of activity.
If you’ve wondered why we’ve been able to see the northern lights so much recently, it’s because the sun is coming to the end of its cycle, reaching its solar maximum which is the time where it experiences its greatest solar activity.
The surge has resulted in solar storms and made the northern and southern lights visible in places where they are not usually spotted so easily.
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Now that the sun has reached the end of its 11-year cycle, its magnetic field will flip, beginning its shift toward solar minimum, which hasn’t happened since 2013.
It’s not immediate but instead is a gradual transition, as Ryan French, who is a solar astrophysicist and Space.com contributing writer, spoke to Space.com, and said: “In short, there is no specific 'moment' in which the sun's poles flip. It's not like the Earth, where the flip is measured by the migration of the North/South pole.”
But what does this reversal of the magnetic field mean for Earth?
The increased activity from the sun and its solar flares have caused geomagnetic storms on Earth, resulting in the northern and southern light displays.
It’s a particularly bumpy phase for magnetic activity, so continuing through the rest of the year, we’ll be in a window which has seen plenty of solar flares and magnetic storms, each carrying the potential to be a little disruptive.
While the solar maximum sees storms hit a few times each year, when it's instead the solar minimum, which is the period with the least activity, we might go a few years between storms.
French also added that space weather is at its strongest during solar maximum.
The magnetic field shift can also help to shield the Earth from galactic cosmic rays, which are high-energy subatomic particles which can damage spacecraft outside of the atmosphere.
It normally takes one to two years for the sun to complete its reversal but the north polar field of Solar Cycle 24 ended in December 2019 and took nearly five years to reverse, says the National Solar Observatory.
There’s another cycle which contains two 11-year cycles. This is known as the Hale cycle and lasts around 22 years, when the sun’s magnetic field will have reserved and then reverted back to its original state.
But don’t worry, while there is certainly a huge increase in activity around this time, the flip is so gradual that you won’t even notice it happening.