Odds are you’ve checked the weather at least once today, looking to see if it’s windy, or rainy, hot, or not. But what about the weather emanating from the huge ball of hot plasma that sits 150 million kilometres away, called the Sun? Replace typical weather lingo with terms like solar flares, coronal mass ejections, magnetic fields, solar winds, radiation particles and you’ve entered the world of space weather. 

 

Around the world, public and private research organizations are constantly focused on monitoring the Sun’s activity and its relationship to Earth. Though we delight in seeing the aurora borealis (powered by solar wind), understanding and predicting the environmental conditions originating from the Sun’s activity is serious business for more industries than you might expect. 

 

In February, SpaceX lost 38 just-launched Starlink internet satellites and upwards of an estimated $80 million dollars.¹ What caused the satellites to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere? In this case, it was a small solar storm’s electromagnetic effects on the size and behaviour of our planet’s atmosphere. On December 6, 2006, the largest solar radio burst ever recorded affected GPS receivers across a widespread US area including New Mexico and Colorado. Closer to home, a major solar storm is credited for the series of events that occurred on March 13, 1989, which left Quebec in the dark for nine hours.²These earthbound examples speak to the various effects space weather can have on technology. Daily, industries ranging from space, energy, and electrical infrastructure to satellite communications and aviation, road and rail transportation, can be potentially affected by the ripple effects of space weather.

 

Researchers have been monitoring the Sun’s behaviour for years to better predict the weather it generates. For example, by tracking sunspot activity, they know the star’s activity levels generally follow an 11-year cycle. We’re now into Solar Cycle 25 and while the previous cycle was exceptionally quiet, this one is targeted to peak between November 2024 and July 2025.³ It’s currently hard to say what hiccups this cycle may mean for Earth.

 

In the meantime, several recent projects are focused on understanding the inner workings and variabilities of the sun, as well as the sun-earth connection. In December 2021, for instance, NASA’s Parker Solar Probe became the first spacecraft in history to touch the sun and gather critical information on solar winds and the flow of particles they send to Earth.⁴ In February, NASA announced two Sun-Earth-focused missions—the Multi-slit Solar Explorer, which is geared to figuring out the physical processes behind space weather events, and HelloSwarm, a series of nine spacecraft that will study solar wind turbulence. It’s early days for these projects, with a combined budget of more than $440 million.⁵  

 

They join the worldwide network of projects and observatories all trained on understanding and predicting space weather. Given the world’s increasing focus on electrically generated power and space ambitions, it’s understandable that we want to be better prepared. As students of the Sun, we join those who have been studying the star’s power since ancient times.

NOTES:

1. Tim Fernholz, “A small solar storm wrecked SpaceX satellites. What will a big one do?” Quartz, February 16, 2022. https://qz.com/2129004.
2. “Space Weather Effects,” ISES, International Space Environment Service, http://www.spaceweather.org/ISES/swxeff/swh.html.
3. Jamie Carter, “The Sun Could Reach ‘Solar Maximum’ Just At The Right Time For North Americans,” Forbes, April 2, 2021, https://www.forbes.com.
4. Mara Johnson-Groh, “NASA Enters the Solar Atmosphere for the First Time, Bringing New Discoveries,” December 14, 2021, https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2021/nasa-enters-the-solar-atmosphere-for-the-first-time-bringing-new-discoveries.
5. Karen Fox, “New Sun Missions to Help NASA Better Understand Earth-Sun Environment,” February 10, 2022, updated February 11, 2022, https://www.nasa.gov.