Earlier this week, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) recorded a rarely seen event—four nearly-simultaneous flare eruptions involving three separate sunspots, as well as the magnetic filament between them. But as impressive as it is, the event could soon pose problems for some satellites and spacecraft orbiting Earth, as well as electronic systems here on the ground.
It may seem like a massive ball of fiery, thermonuclear chaos, but there’s actually a fairly predictable rhythm to the sun. Similar to Earth’s seasonal changes, the yellow dwarf star’s powerful electromagnetic fluctuations follow a roughly 11-year cycle of ebbs and flows. Although astronomers still aren’t quite sure why this happens, it’s certainly observable—and recent activity definitely indicates the sun is heading towards its next “solar maximum” later this year.
As Spaceweather.com notes, early Tuesday morning’s “complex quartet” of solar activity was what’s known as a “super-sympathetic flare,” in which multiple events occur at nearly the same time. This happens thanks to the often hard-to-detect magnetic loops spreading across the sun’s corona, which can create explosive chain reactions in the process. In this case, hundreds of thousands of miles separated the three individual flares, but they still erupted within minutes of each other. All-told, the super-sympathetic flare encompassed about a third of the sun’s total surface facing Earth.
[Related: Why our tumultuous sun was relatively quiet in the late 1600s]
And that “facing Earth” factor could present an issue. BGR explains “at least some” of the electromagnetic “debris” could be en route towards the planet in the form of a coronal mass ejection (CME). If so, those forces could result in colorful auroras around the Earth’s poles—as well as create potential tech woes for satellite arrays and orbiting spacecraft, not to mention blackouts…
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