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The Sun Is About to Enter a Period of Peak Activity

posted by mrpg on Friday March 03, @02:00AM   Printer-friendly
from the FPS-4000 dept.

upstart writes:

The Sun Is About to Enter a Period of Peak Activity :

Scientists say the Sun is about to enter a peak activity period called a "solar maximum." This point in the solar cycle typically brings abundant sunspots and flares as the Sun's magnetic poles flip. But what does that mean for us here on Earth?

First, it's essential to understand what's happening on the Sun during a solar maximum. The Sun constantly undergoes a type of motion called convection, in which its plasma boils toward the surface, then sinks back toward the star's 27 million-degree core as it cools. This process is what builds strong magnetic fields at the Sun's poles. Every decade or so, however, this convection becomes unstable, causing the Sun's north and south poles to flip. This point in the solar cycle triggers a period of intense activity on the Sun's surface, resulting in what we call a solar maximum.

Solar maximum gives astronomers beautiful images of sunspots and bright solar flares. Astronomers also spend this period looking for coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, in which the Sun spits out massive balls of plasma at hundreds to thousands of kilometers per second. But because the Sun is so close to Earth, these phenomena have real-life implications for us humans and our electricity-dependent infrastructure.

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  • (Score: 2) by Barenflimski on Friday March 03, @02:39AM

    by Barenflimski (6836) on Friday March 03, @02:39AM (#1294183)

    I for one am going to stare at the sun during the day. At night, I'm going to pray for it to come back.

    If I'm lucky, I'll see the end, right before it begins.

    At worst, maybe I burn my eyes out cuz the sunz blowin' up!

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @06:18AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @06:18AM (#1294225)

    Would significantly increase the odds of bit flips? Or only slightly? Wiki says it would actually decrease it but "citation needed".
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soft_error#Cosmic_rays_creating_energetic_neutrons_and_protons [wikipedia.org]

    The average rate of cosmic-ray soft errors is inversely proportional to sunspot activity. That is, the average number of cosmic-ray soft errors decreases during the active portion of the sunspot cycle and increases during the quiet portion. This counter-intuitive result occurs for two reasons. The Sun does not generally produce cosmic ray particles with energy above 1 GeV that are capable of penetrating to the Earth's upper atmosphere and creating particle showers, so the changes in the solar flux do not directly influence the number of errors. Further, the increase in the solar flux during an active sun period does have the effect of reshaping the Earth's magnetic field providing some additional shielding against higher energy cosmic rays, resulting in a decrease in the number of particles creating showers.

    See also: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221011-how-space-weather-causes-computer-errors [bbc.com]
    https://youtu.be/AaZ_RSt0KP8 [youtu.be]

    Those on ECC or DDR5 RAM may not have to worry as much...

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @01:22PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03, @01:22PM (#1294260)

      It depends upon where you are talking about bit flips. It looks like the Wiki article is talking about on the ground, but satellites take a beating during these solar maximum times and you get a lot of problems with them. The Wiki article is talking about how it is harder for galactic cosmic ray particles to make it to Earth and strike the atmosphere because, essentially, they have to fight their way inwards in the solar system against the more active magnetic fields coming out of the Sun. If you want to see a nice example of that, look up a time-series plot from a neutron detector station and you'll see how as the Sun is more active, you get less neutrons on the ground (which are the result of atmospheric showers caused by high energy cosmic rays striking the top of the atmosphere). For instance, Figure 11 here [jhuapl.edu] (which can easily fool you to think the opposite because you have to pay attention to the fact that they plotted the sunspot number on a decreasing scale!).

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by richtopia on Friday March 03, @04:21PM (1 child)

    by richtopia (3160) Subscriber Badge on Friday March 03, @04:21PM (#1294298) Homepage Journal

    Every once in a while I'll tune in to a particular conservative/libertarian influencer to see what latest theory is on the up-and-up. Apparently, the solar cycle is the cause for global warming, not CO2 emissions. So don't worry, everything will settle down soon enough.

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 03, @05:39PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday March 03, @05:39PM (#1294317) Journal

      Yep, whenever there is excess solar activity that causes global warming.

      And also, since it's a 11 year cycle, periods of minimal solar activity also cause global warming.

      See, no CO2 needed!

  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Saturday March 04, @08:52AM

    by anubi (2828) on Saturday March 04, @08:52AM (#1294435) Journal

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1VPfZ_XzisU [youtube.com]

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
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