January 3, 2025
3 min read
Heliophysics Is Set to Shine in 2025
The science of the sun and its effects on the solar system is a sprawling discipline that expects a very exciting 2025
The sun sends out a constant flow of charged particles called the solar wind, which ultimately travels past all the planets to some three times the distance to Pluto before being impeded by the interstellar medium. This forms a giant bubble around the sun and its planets, known as the heliosphere.
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab
If our solar system were to lose a few moons or even a planet, the difference might be hard to notice—but lose the sun, and everything changes. Despite its role as neighborhood linchpin, however, scientists still have a whole host of questions about how the sun works and how it influences our daily life on Earth and in space. And 2025 is poised to play a key role in getting answers.
Three factors are combining to make the coming year particularly exciting for the discipline known as heliophysics: the sun’s natural activity cycle, a fleet of spacecraft launches and the release of a blueprint designed to guide the next decade of work in the field.
Right now the sun is in the maximum phase of its 11-year activity cycle, where scientists expect it to remain for perhaps another year or so before its activity begins to wane. And although the current Solar Cycle 25 isn’t breaking any records, it has produced a host of solar flares and other spectacular outbursts that scientists have been able to monitor with recent new instruments. Those observers include both the largest solar telescope ever built and a spacecraft that has made the closest approach to the sun in history.
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