Sol (Sun) and its phenomena

[Olivierlejardinier]

A newly released article suggests that the incoming solar cycles might be stronger/more active than the 3 or 4 previous ones.

THE CENTENNIAL GLEISSBERG CYCLE: You've heard of the 11-year sunspot cycle. But what about the Centennial Gleissberg Cycle? The Gleissberg Cycle is a slow modulation of the solar cycle, which suppresses sunspot numbers every 80 to 100 years. It may have been responsible for the remarkable weakness of Solar Cycle 24 in 2012-2013. New research published in the journal Space Weather suggests that the minimum of the Gleissberg Cycle has just passed. If so, solar cycles for the next 50 years could become increasingly intense. Read the paper here.

From the study :

Plain Language Summary​

The Earth's inner radiation belt, dominated by high-energy protons, is influenced by solar activity. Studies have shown a correlation between the 11-year solar cycle and the proton population, with lower solar activity leading to increased proton flux. We analyzed data from NOAA-15 and NOAA-19 satellites to monitor the proton population above the South Atlantic Anomaly. Our findings indicate that the recent increase in solar activity, causing a significant decline in the proton flux, is correlated with the turnover in the Centennial Gleissberg Cycle, a longer-term modulation of solar activity spanning approximately 80–100 years. As solar activity continues to rise over the next few solar cycles, we anticipate a further decrease in the proton population. This changing space climate will have implications for the design and operation of future satellite missions.

Wikipedia :

Gleissberg cycle​

The Gleissberg cycle describes an amplitude modulation of solar cycles with a period of about 70–100 years, or seven or eight solar cycles. It was named after Wolfgang Gleißberg

As pioneered by Ilya G. Usoskin and Sami Solanki, associated centennial variations in magnetic fields in the corona and heliosphere have been detected using carbon-14 and beryllium-10 cosmogenic isotopes stored in terrestrial reservoirs such as ice sheets and tree rings and by using historic observations of geomagnetic storm activity, which bridge the time gap between the end of the usable cosmogenic isotope data and the start of modern satellite data.

These variations have been successfully reproduced using models that employ magnetic flux continuity equations and observed sunspot numbers to quantify the emergence of magnetic flux from the top of the solar atmosphere and into the heliosphere, showing that sunspot observations, geomagnetic activity and cosmogenic isotopes offer a convergent understanding of solar activity variations.

The amplitude of the 11-year solar cycle (formally called the Schwabe cycle, orange) is modulated by the approximately 100-year Gleissberg cycle (charcoal), in which a number of consecutive cycles of high activity are bracketed by consecutive cycles of lower activity. The start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-1700s coincided with a Gleissberg maximum. The relatively high activity of the mid 20th-century also coincided with a Gleissberg maximum, while the recent decades coincide with a Gleissberg minimum. NOAA Climate.gov image based on data from Wang and Lean, 2021.

The Carrington event in 1859 was also around a peak of this cycle...

 

[Puma]

Stunning view of the Solar System

This new video, taken by NASA's Parker Solar Probe during its 21st close approach to the Sun, shows a stunning view of the Solar System from inside Mercury’s orbit.

It captures solar phenomena like coronal streamers, a small coronal mass ejection, and high-energy particles streaking past the camera. Visible planets include Mercury, Venus, Saturn, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter.

A comet, Tsuchinshan-ATLAS, briefly appears with its tail. These observations help us understand how the Sun affects space weather, satellites, astronauts, and Earth’s power grids.

Parker Solar Probe is flying closer to the Sun than any spacecraft before it, eventually reaching within 6 million kilometers of the surface.

Coronal streamers are bright, plasma-filled structures from the Sun’s outer atmosphere that stretch into space.

High-energy particle streaks are due to solar energetic particles hitting the camera, essentially, you're watching radiation in real time.

Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is a recently discovered comet, and its tail’s appearance in the video is a rare, spectacular moment.

This data is crucial for understanding space weather, which can disrupt communication, GPS, and power systems on Earth.

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