At the end of the last solar cycle, in 2019, official forecasts pointed out that the next cycle would be as moderate as its predecessor. These predictions were incorrect.
Current Solar cycle 25 It turned out much more intense than NASA and NOAA expected.
In a new one, published last week in The Astrophysical Journal Lettersa team of scientists has now concluded that the activity of the sun follows an upward trajectory, outside the boundaries of the solar cycle 11 years old.
In fact, the results of a new analysis of the available data, conducted within the study, suggest that the sun activity has been gradually increase Since 2008.
“All signs indicated that the sun would enter a prolonged phase of low activity,” explains Jamie JasinskiNASA’s Plasma Plasma Physical (JPL) and the first author of the study, to. «So it was a surprise to see this inverted trend. The sun is slowly waking up. »
The sun It looks like a constant and comforting presence In everyday life, but it is, in fact, quite stormy and variable.
A particular change that goes through is what we call Solar cycle. Approximately 11 in 11 years, the sun goes through an increase in activity, reaching the maximum solar, before going back to go back to the minimum solar.
This activity manifests itself in a Significant increase in solar spotssolar eruptions and ejections of coronal mass during solar maximum, when the sun’s poles reverse their polarity.
It’s all very normal; we are currently in the 25th solar cycle recorded, which means that scientists have been following this phenomenon for centuriesusing solar spots as an indicator of solar activity.
However, even with this abundance of data on solar cycles, to predict the behavior of the sun remains an inaccurate art. There is much more to happen inside the sun than we can see, boosting changes that scientists are still trying to explain.
For example, over a period of 70 years, between 1645 and 1715, known as, UP. A similar break occurred between 1790 and 1830, called the minimum of Dalton.
«We really don’t know Why the sun has crossed a minimum of 40 years from 1790, ”says Jasinski. “Long -term trends are much less predictable and we have not yet fully understood them.”
Os solar cycles 22 and 23Started in 1986 and 1996, respectively, were relatively average in terms of sunscreens activity.
Despite this, the Solar wind pressure decreased constantly throughout both cycles, leading scientists to believe that we could be on their way to Something similar to the events of MAUDER or DALTON.
In 2008, the Solar 24 cycle began, which was a of the weaker solar cycles registered in terms of spot activity and solar eruptions. Scientists thought that the solar cycle 25 would be similarbut its activity level has proved higher, more consistent with an medium solar cycle.
Jasinski and his colleague, space physicist Marco Velli, also from JPL, now analyzed long -term solar data and found something surprising. In 2008, at the beginning of the solar cycle 24, The solar wind began to intensify And it has continued to constantly increase since then.
This force is measured in speed, density, temperature, thermal pressuremass, moment, energy and intensity of the magnetic field, all which showed an increase.
The sun is an extraordinarily complex engineand one thing is clear: it is extremely difficult to predict what will make next. Jasinski and Velli believe that their results indicate that we can watch an increase in phenomena of more aggressive space climatewith strong winds, solar storms, eruptions and ejections of coronal mass.
The results are also in line with another aspect Sun Behavior: The Cyclo of hallsrepresented by pairs of solar cycles; Each Hale cycle lasts 22 yearsending when the magnetic poles return to their original polarities.
An increasing number of evidence suggests that Hale’s cycle is the main cycleand that each solar cycle represents only half of the full cycle.
Right now, The solar wind pressure is still inferior to the one that existed in the early twentieth century. The only way to know what will happen next is to continue to observe, to realize if it will continue to increase or if it will stabilize.
