Solar cycles life cycles

For most people on this planet, the Solar Cycle is like talking about the sex of Martians. Science in general is perceived as something alien to our world, even though in reality all of our technology, medicine, and in short, everything we know today as a way of life, is the result of years of effort in this field. Apart from material progress, science sheds light on the world around us; this natural world that we consider ourselves to be separate from, but on which our lives depend.

Solar flare in X ray

The Sun is not just for tanning and powering photovoltaic cells. As we learn in school, it is the source of life for plants, which in turn provide us (and our livestock) with food, and it also powers our weather. Of course, it is not expected that people know everything about what the Sun does, but each sneeze of the star should be seen as something more important than a scientific curiosity or an apocalyptic headline. Today, in the midst of climate change, it is important to know that if the earth is warming up, it is because there is a Sun that sends energy to it, and variations in its flux also influence this.

Galileo Galilei discovered the Sunspots in the 16th century. These follow an 11-year cycle where they go from a minimum where they disappear or almost disappear to a maximum where there are many and Solar Eruptions or Storms (which often make news) are abundant. We know why they occur: simplifying, it is a combined action between the differential rotation inside the sun (let's not forget that it is a fluid) and the twisting of the magnetic field that leads to the polarity inversion of the star. But despite being discovered by Galileo, in the 17th and 18th centuries, it was believed that Galileo was wrong, as happened with the rings of Saturn, which he described as two satellites, due to the non-existence of any evidence for almost a century, with what is probably a longer second cycle. This minimum coincides with the Little Ice Age (15th to 19th centuries; with particular harshness in the 18th century).

Solar spots are the consequence of the instability of the Sun's crust. The spots that come in pairs are the exit of the magnetic field lines of the Sun during their process of inversion. These magnetic field lines are where spectacular flares, ejecting large amounts of material, sometimes from deeper and more hidden areas, and energy, emerge. When the Sun enters a period of low activity, like in the 1970s, the planet's temperature decreases. This argument is what Climate Change deniers use to justify the current high temperatures; unfortunately for them and us, looking at the temperature increase graph since the mid-19th century, where several solar cycles have passed, the general trend is to rise, with small fluctuations due to the Sun.

Solar flare Vs Earth size

The Sun may seem very distant, and seem like a curiosity like the customs of Australian Aborigines. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just eight minutes after a solar flare, we are hit by the thermal wave and EM peak, and in just a few days, the high-energy charged particle stream arrives. Fortunately, the Earth has a powerful magnetic field that acts as a shield, which, thanks to its existence, unlike other planets like Mars, allows life to exist.

Indeed, we cannot be entirely relaxed about our magnetic shield. Firstly, upon impact, the Northern Lights occur, which are nothing more than charged particles running along the edge of the shield. And undoubtedly, the most important thing is that we live in a world of devices that operate on electricity and are electronically regulated. Fluctuations in the magnetic field not only create Feng Shui problems but are also detected by our devices and disrupt their functioning. We also have countless satellites that are outside the Earth's field, where the disturbance is greater or directly outside it, causing breakdowns and even satellite losses. But undoubtedly, the maximum fear begins with the great maxima. In 1859, a solar storm produced an Aurora that reached the Tropics. Its direct impact was not very significant, thanks to the fact that electricity was used very little, but it did burn down some telegraph stations. Imagine for a moment that a solar storm of these characteristics impacts the Earth again. Surely all electronic devices in operation would stop working forever, and I don't need to describe the situation. A mega-storm would seem exceptional, but in reality, they are more common than they seem, and if nothing has happened to us, it is because we have not encountered them yet, but sooner or later, we will again.

Indeed, the effects of a large solar storm would be devastating for our highly technological society. Electromagnetic disturbances could affect communication systems, electrical grids, navigation systems, and even airplanes flying through the affected areas. This could cause massive power outages, interruptions in communication services, and significant economic losses. That is why scientists study solar storms and work on protective and preventative measures to reduce their impact on our society.

25th Solar Cycle is begining

We are currently in the 25th Solar Cycle since the cyclic nature of solar activity was discovered in 1755. This cycle is peculiar, apart from an elongation of inactivity, the maximum, which was predicted to be low (a Mini-Maximum), even seemed to stop, re-emerging in 2012 with violence, producing solar storms comparable to that of 1859, which fortunately did not occur in the direction of Earth. Fortunately, because such an event in our days would be a worldwide tsunami. Much of the surprise lies in that we know well why the 11-year cycle occurs, but this leaves room for modulation that would imply the existence of another cycle with a longer duration, and obviously if there are two, why not three or five? The Sun is 5,000 million years old and 11 years are nothing. Thus, the Sun can have several cycles that we don't know what produces them and even less can we predict their behavior, and the Sun is very close to us.

The sciences are often the sacrifice in times of crisis, but even the most esoteric knowledge is closely linked to our daily lives. It may seem superfluous to spend on space research when children die of hunger every day, but it only seems that way because many of the things that happen in this world we believe to be isolated depend on what happens in this universe of which we are ignorant; ignorance that only science can overcome.