The Sun Just Unleashed A ‘Remarkable’ Series Of Solar Flares On Its Most Active Day For Years

Sunspots on the surface of our Sun are on the increase and yesterday—December 14—one of them produced no fewer than eight solar flares.

One sunspot, called AR3165, “unleashed a remarkable series of M-class solar flares,” reported SpaceWeather.com. “All day long, no more than a few hours went by without a significant explosion.”

Our Sun is waxing towards its once-every-11-years “solar maximum” in 2024 or 2025, but it’s been rather quiet for the past few months.

Its slumber ended abruptly this week with solar physicist Keith Strong tweeting that it was the most active day so far during this solar cycle.

The present Solar Cycle 25 began in December 2019 and is predicted to be one of the strongest on record.

Solar flares are eruptions of electromagnetic radiation in the Sun’s atmosphere. They’re caused by twisted magnetic fields, typically above sunspots—cooler, darker regions of the Sun’s surface that form when clumps of its magnetic field well up from deep within the Sun.

Although not as dangerous as X-class, M-class solar flares are medium-sized and capable of causing minor radiation storms and radio blackouts on Earth. That’s exactly what happened, with shortwave radio blackouts at frequencies below 15 MHz reported worldwide.

When solar flares come our way, Earth’s magnetosphere accelerates the charged particles down its field lines to the poles. The result is the Northern Lights and Southern Lights.

Since AR3165 wasn’t facing Earth at the time our planet won’t this time get the full effect of the resulting coronal mass ejections (CMEs) hurled into space. Large expulsions of plasma and magnetic field from the Sun’s corona, a CME can reach Earth in 15-18 hours, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center.

CMEs are huge clouds of plasma that could damage power grids if they drift our way.

It’s thought that the Sun will reach solar maximum in the mid-2020s, though that’s something that can usually only be seen after the event. The last solar maximum was in 2013/2014, but was was ranked among the weakest on record. This new one could be the strongest.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.