Astro Blog

By MICHAEL GRESHKO , Science.  Excerpt: Earth got its bell rung this past weekend, sucker-punched by the Sun itself in the biggest geomagnetic storm in more than 2 decades. The storm—triggered when the magnetic fields in blobs of plasma from the Sun collided with Earth’s magnetic field—not only yielded once-in-a-generation aurorae at latitudes as low as the Florida Keys, but also took scientists’ breath away with its power. ...This weekend’s fireworks began with Active Region 3664, a giant cluster of sunspots, more than 15 times wider than Earth, where the Sun’s magnetic field is highly concentrated. The magnetic field lines twisted and eventually snapped, causing the cluster to fling off a series of enormous, billion-ton blobs of plasma toward Earth, each embedded with strong magnetic fields. The detection of at least five of these expulsions, known as coronal mass ejections (CMEs), caused U.S. forecasters to  issue a “severe” G4 watch —its first since 2005—on 9 May, the day ...

https://www.science.org/content/article/peak-solar-activity-arriving-sooner-expected-reaching-levels-not-seen-20-years By ZACK SAVITSKY , Science.  Excerpt: In 2019, as the Sun approached a minimum in its 11-year cycle of magnetic activity, a dozen scientists assembled for a traditional exercise: forecasting the next peak. Now, a few years into the Sun’s resurgence, it’s becoming clear that the official prediction from the panel, convened by NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the International Space Environment Service (ISES), missed the mark. The Sun’s activity has already surpassed the forecast, reaching levels not seen in 20 years, and solar maximum may arrive within the next year, months ahead of its presumed schedule....