(NewsNation) — The sun has officially reached its solar maximum period, increasing the likelihood of more displays of the northern lights and potential infrastructure disruptions.
Representatives from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration made the announcement last week, indicating the solar maximum could continue for the next year.
The sun goes through an 11-year cycle transitioning between low and high magnetic activity culminating with the flipping of the sun’s magnetic poles.
Leading up to the flipping of the sun enters an active and stormy state before once again declining to a calmer one.
Scientists use sunspots to predict the solar cycle and solar activity. That activity leads to space weather in the form of solar flares and coronal mass ejections that launch clouds of charged particles toward Earth, which in May created the strongest geomagnetic storm on Earth in two decades.
CMEs are also what cause the dancing, colored lights known as the aurora borealis. Normally visible only at extreme northern latitudes, strong geomagnetic storms can bring the northern lights much farther south than usual.
In May, the light display was seen as far south as North Carolina. During the solar maximum, it’s possible sky gazers may get a repeat of the display extending well into the continental U.S.
But space weather can also have negative impacts, with CMEs potentially affecting satellites and astronauts in space, as well as interfering with communications, navigation systems and power grids on Earth.
It’s possible this cycle could be active enough to rival the 1859 Carrington Event, when a massive geomagnetic storm resulted in people thinking the sun had risen in the middle of the night and wreaked havoc on telegraph systems.
In a world far more dependent on electricity and reliant on satellites, a similar event could result in global blackouts costing trillions and disrupting essential services.
Scientists won’t be able to determine the exact peak of the solar maximum until many months after it’s happened, but they predict the solar maximum phase will last through 2025 and possibly into 2026 before solar activity begins to decline again.
Scientists will not be able to determine the exact peak of this solar maximum period for many months because it’s only identifiable after they’ve tracked a consistent decline in solar activity after that peak.