During its roughly 11-year activity cycle, the sun goes from calm at solar minimum to an active time at solar maximum filled with flares, plasma oscillations, and sunspots. If you’ve noticed an increase in the news about solar storms and the northern lights over the past few months, it’s because the solar maximum is fast approaching. You may also be wondering how this storm maximum affects us, as there are many myths and facts about this high period in solar storms.
The strongest known geomagnetic storm occurred in 1859, when auroras were seen all the way to the tropics and the telegraph station caught fire. If such a powerful event happened today, it would be a great disaster, but it would not kill us all or destroy our civilization. Such events are extremely rare, and space weather forecasting should make us very grateful for our planet’s magnetic field while helping to minimize damage.
Thanks to the protection of our planet’s magnetosphere, the effects of these storms on us are less severe. While even the most severe solar radiation storm on the NOAA Space Weather Scale largely only affects astronauts, people on airplanes or at higher latitudes may be more exposed to increased levels of radiation. During one solar cycle, such an extreme solar storm can last about a day.
The most common solar storms have a cumulative occurrence of 50 days per solar cycle and have little or no impact on humans and satellites. Storms are caused by coronal mass ejections and solar flares, but only the strongest (class X) can reach levels of severity on the NOAA scale.
Most solar flares aren’t dangerous to us, but they can pose problems for our technology in space or even on Earth. These storms can directly affect satellites, change the shape of the atmosphere and damage our communications. Also, you don’t need an X-class storm for such a problem; Class M storms, the second-ranking power class, can be equally problematic.
From the US National Solar Observatory, Dr. “With the M-class flares we currently get several times a week, you may experience minor radio interruptions, which means that in very small regions on the full day side of the Earth, radio communication can be awkward,” Ryan French says in a conversation with IFLScience. you cannot launch anything (into space) in these conditions. Also, you do not take any sensitive action due to radio communication (in space).
Thus, the most common effect of a peak in solar activity is a minor disturbance caused by the inability of satellites to communicate rather than encountering an apocalyptic scenario.
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