SOHO itself was damaged in 2003 during the Halloween solar-storms of cycle 23 which had peaked in 2000 and during which the most powerful solar storms in history were recorded by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite.
There were power outages for one hour in Sweden and aircraft were advised to avoid flying at high altitude in the polar regions and aurora borealis was observed as far south as Texas, and all this despite the fact that the solar flare had actually been directed away from Earth, had the flare been incident with the Earth, one can only guess at what might have happened, but at the very least a mass global electrical power outage of unforeseen duration and significant damage of electrical systems.
Sunspots were first observed from 1609 onwards by Galileo Galilei and the 11-year sunspot cycle was first formally recorded by 18th Century Swiss astronomer Rudolf Wolf who using documented sunspot observation data, reconstructed the sunspot cycle back to February 1755 which marks the start of cycle 1.
The sun’s magnetic field reverses magnetic polarity every 11 years, and the next 11 years, it returns, so in reality the 11-year sunspot cycle is only half of a loner 22-year cycle. The 11 year cycle begins with the solar minimum which extends for a maximum of 5 years of minimal extra magnetic solar surface activity followed by 5 years maximal activity with high sunspots number and risk of solar flares, with one transitional year between each phase to where the activity either steps down or steps up to the following phase, making a cycle of roughly 11 years.
This magnetic field is generated by something called the solar dynamo which is a magnetic field generated by the swirling ionic plasma, that is, the electrically charged gasses, within the sun and it is composed of two primary fields, a toroidal and poloidal field. Sunspots are a manifestation of changes in the toroidal field.
During the solar minimum the surface of the sun is quiet and few sunspots are present and the toroidal magnetic field lines are cohesive and largely distributed around the middle latitude regions of the solar core. In the build-up to the solar maximum, these field lines become much less cohesive, bunching up and becoming contorted and the frayed magnetic field breaking out of the confinement of the solar core and reaching the surface where it forms sunspots and great arcing jets of magnetised plasma which are either contained within the sun or break loose to form a coronal mass ejection and the loss of magnetised plasma. It’s possible to see this activity as a kind of off-gassing, or pressure release mechanism of the sun, and although a great deal of the investigation into the nature of this process is still within the realm of speculation.
It was believed that cycle 24 would represent the peak of a long-term cycle within the roughly 11 year sunspot cycle which alternates although the 2012 sunspot cycle represented an 11 year peak of activity since the last peak in 2001, by comparison to trends within the cycle, the 2012 did not actually represent a culmination in the Grand Solar Maximum, but a rather understated quiet peak as has, of now, been regarded as the first manifestation of what is now considered the Grand Solar Minimum which officially began in 2020.
To this day this has confused astrophysics who cannot understand why the sun has suddenly gone fairly quiet since 2012, when what was anticipated was a roar of activity, huge coronal mass ejections reaching all the way out to Earth orbit and knocking out electrical grids and communication systems and potentially plunging us back into something like a technological stone-age, even serious scientists predicted these things as being very real possibilities and of course were hoovered up by the dozen to give out doom-laden sound-bites to the media and in particular our friends at the Daily Mail who couldn’t get enough of it and in fact still, rightly or wrongly, periodically herald apocalyptical warnings about world-ending solar storms.
As we know the world didn’t end in 2012, but scientists were somewhat surprised to find that the supposed peak of peaks, was the quietest solar maximum since the Solar Maximum in a hundred years with 914 recorded days without sunspots. It seems then that the 2012 culmination of what was supposed to be the peak of the Grand Solar Maximum, had in reality, peaked in 2001 and 2012 represented the beginning of a new long term cycle of minimal solar-activity which is known as the Grand Solar Minimum which is categorised by a decrease in solar activity and a reduction in the number of observable sunspots and a long term reduction in global temperatures, which although this hasn’t yet been observed, by the time this cycle is said to end in 2053, we are likely to observe a reduction in global average temperatures by at least 1 degree Celsius. It seemed that instead of culminating in 2012, the solar maximum was divided into two peaks, a second peak in 2014 which saw the largest sunspot in 24 years and a X3.1 solar flare in October. For some reason late October, around Halloween often seems to be a key date for solar activity.
We are now in cycle 25 and sunspot numbers are increasing with, with so far this year, no spotless days and sunspot occurrence is expected to rise into the solar maximum over the next few years and is expected to peak sometime in 2025. Coincidentally, there is another great cosmological cycle which will reach its zenith in 2025, the 18.6 year cycle of the Major Lunar Standstill.
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