The Sun's Magnetic Poles Are Reversing: What Happens if a Solar Storm Strikes Earth?

[Vambram]

The Sun's Magnetic Poles Are Reversing: What Happens if a Solar Storm Strikes Earth?

According to scientists, every 11 years, the sun goes through a cycle where its magnetic poles (North and South) reverse

www2.cbn.com

According to scientists, every 11 years, the sun goes through a cycle where its magnetic poles (North and South) reverse or switch places.

The sun's poles last flipped in 2013, so the next event is on schedule to take place this year, according to Vox.com.

Scientists say there's no need to panic. It's not a sign of the apocalypse. You won't even notice it when the flip happens. But it's not the pole reversal itself that's the main cause for concern.

With the sun's surface growing more active, serious anomalies can happen. While that's great news for amateur astronomers who are set to see some amazing solar fireworks through their telescopes, it could be bad news for power grids and communication satellites circling the Earth.

There's already intense magnetic activity now happening on the sun's surface that marks a kind of lead-in that comes before the poles' reversal.

"We are indeed seeing the sun more active than it's been in probably something like 20 years," Paul Charbonneau, a solar physicist at the University of Montreal, told Vox.

 

[Gene2memE]

Solar storms hit Earth all the time. They average one about every 10 days.

We're nearing the current peak for this solar activity cycle. Activity has been ramping up for the past four years.

Peak is expected to be in mid 2024 to early 2025. Activity is expected to be marginally stronger than the last cycle (peak in mid 2014) but not as strong as cycles seen at the start of the 1980s, start of the 1990s or early 2000s.

There may be an 'extreme' geomagnetic storm coming. But there's not much to worry about there. Even the big 2003 and 2015 events didn't have that much of an impact.

 

[chevyontheriver]

The Sun's Magnetic Poles Are Reversing: What Happens if a Solar Storm Strikes Earth?

According to scientists, every 11 years, the sun goes through a cycle where its magnetic poles (North and South) reverse

www2.cbn.com

According to scientists, every 11 years, the sun goes through a cycle where its magnetic poles (North and South) reverse or switch places.

The sun's poles last flipped in 2013, so the next event is on schedule to take place this year, according to Vox.com.

Scientists say there's no need to panic. It's not a sign of the apocalypse. You won't even notice it when the flip happens. But it's not the pole reversal itself that's the main cause for concern.

With the sun's surface growing more active, serious anomalies can happen. While that's great news for amateur astronomers who are set to see some amazing solar fireworks through their telescopes, it could be bad news for power grids and communication satellites circling the Earth.

There's already intense magnetic activity now happening on the sun's surface that marks a kind of lead-in that comes before the poles' reversal.

"We are indeed seeing the sun more active than it's been in probably something like 20 years," Paul Charbonneau, a solar physicist at the University of Montreal, told Vox.

A solar blast directed right at the earth could be messy. A big one could do damage to transistors, which we are quite reliant upon. But the solar magnetic field flipping is of itself of little concern. Just more solar blasts and some day a big one will be pointed this way. That would be called a 'Carrington Event'. The one in 1859 melted telegraph wires in some places and started telegraph poles on fire in some places.

The magnetic field that is of more concern to us is the earth's magnetic field. It does flip. Last time about 780,000 years ago. And roughly every 450,000 years on average. It takes a few thousand years for the flip to occur so we would not have the protection of the magnetic field for middle of that time. The results are speculative but nobody alive now would actually see the reverse if it started today. And nothing could be done to stop it anyway.

 

[essentialsaltes]

Certainly something like the Carrington Event (1859) happening today would be/will be no joke.

But this 11-year cycle has been observed for 250 years. It is not leading to any ultimate apocalypse, any more than the event in 1859 was an apocalypse.

 

[Whyayeman]

Let's keep calm and carry on, eh?