Solar scientists have seen signs that the next solar cycle is beginning. This is even after it has been around for another six years, and the current solar cycle (Cycle 25) continues.
The current solar cycle is expected to reach its peak or “solar maximum” in mid-2025 when our star’s gravity will change and its numbers will change. Forerunners of this solar activity are increasing sunspots, solar flares and explosions of interstellar plasma called coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
Despite the composition of Cycle 25 at its peak, it seems that Cycle 26 can not wait to participate. Reports of the start of the next 11-year solar cycle came in the form of “quakes,” sound. eddy currents in the sun observed by researchers at the University of Birmingham.
Related: 2nd X-class solar flare this week, causing more radio outages (video)
“It is exciting to see the first suggestion that the pattern will be repeated in Cycle 26, which is due to start in six years,” team leader Rachel Howe of the University of Birmingham said in a statement.
Wait for your turn in Cycle 26!
To detect signs of this extra-massive solar cycle, Howe and colleagues used a scientific technique called helioseismology, which measures the earthquakes in our star.
Just as seismologists can use waves that shake the Earth to determine the interior of our planet, including its shape and form, helioseismologists can do the same with sound waves and the sun.
Helioseismology can also determine how the sun rotates. Since the sun is a very hot gas, or liquid, it does not rotate like a solid body. Instead, it has a rotation process called “differential rotation” that sees different parts of the sun move at different angular speeds.
This creates a visible pattern of bands called “solar torsional oscillation” some rotating faster, others slower. During the solar cycle, these groups move to and from the sun’s poles and its equator. Rapid rotation belts are often seen when the next solar eclipse is about to begin.
A team from the University of Birmingham has seen a faint indication that Cycle 26 is starting to manifest itself in the cycle data they are analyzing.
“If you go back one solar cycle – 11 years – in the project, you can see the same object that appears to meet the shape we saw in 2017. It continued to be part of the solar cycle , Cycle 25,” Howe said. “We may be seeing the first vestiges of Cycle 26, which won’t officially begin until 2030.”
NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has been observing the sun since 2010, collecting helioseismic data using the onboard Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) to help scientists like Howe study signs of solar torsional oscillation.
In addition to this, researchers have similar data dating back to 1995, thanks to the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
This means that Howe and colleagues have a picture of the rising phases of Cycles 23, 24, and 25. In fact, Howe has been tracking changes in the sun’s rotation for years. 25, he started his research when scientists had only a partial role. data from Cycle 23.
This revealed fast-moving objects and sunspots moving toward the sun’s equator, a pattern that repeats itself in similar ways during Cycle 24 and during the growth cycle of Cycle 25. Now, Howe suggests that the same pattern occurs again before Cycle 26.
“With more data, I hope we can understand more about the role these flows play in the complex dance of plasma and gravity that make up the solar system,” he concluded.
The team’s research was presented at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting 2024 (NAM 24) in Hull.
#solar #cycle #begun #starquakes #suggest