After nearly four years of being covered in dark spots like an acne-covered teenager, Sun’s face suddenly becomes smoother day after day, suggesting that solar activity is decreasing. But while this stunning “unspotted” scene is a sign of things to come, experts warn it’s too early to let our guard down.
On Sunday (February 22), for the first time since June 8, 2022, there were no visible sunspots on the Earth’s side of the sun, Live Science’s sister site Space.com reported. This “clean day” ended a sunspot streak that lasted 1,335 days, during which there was always the imminent threat that one of these dark spots might spark a potentially dangerous solar storm that could later hit Earth.
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The intact solar disk was surprising, considering we recently entered solar maximum, the culmination of the sun’s roughly 11-year solar cycle, when sunspots litter the sun’s surface and it constantly spews out solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
In recent weeks, we have also been hit by a massive solar radiation event, witnessing one of the most explosive sunspots of the current solar cycle, making the sudden turn of events even more confusing.
But don’t be fooled by the sun’s appearance. This is because the current cycle (Solar Cycle 25) is not yet over and several more space weather events are almost certain to occur before our home planet transitions to a more permanent pristine state.
“Solar Cycle 25 still has many years of life left in it,” Spaceweather.com representatives wrote. “But these clean days tell us that the current cycle is in decline,” they added.
count sunspots
Sunspots occur when the sun’s magnetic field is unstable. This occurs at and around solar maximum, when the sun’s magnetic field completely reverses. For this reason, dark spots are important indicators of the progression of the solar cycle.
A sudden spike in sunspots in early 2022 was the first clue that solar maximum would arrive sooner than official predictions had initially suggested, and it turns out that’s exactly what happened. The peak of Solar Cycle 25 (SC25) was also much more active than expected, with the average number of sunspots rising to 215.5 in August 2024, the highest monthly total in more than 23 years.
In recent years, we’ve seen a record number of X-class flares explode from sunspots (due in part to advances in solar observing technology), and we’ve also been hit by several major solar storms, including the famous 2024 Mother’s Day storm. The storm briefly disrupted GPS technology and caused some of the most widespread aurora borealis in centuries.
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The solar maximum is likely to end in early 2025, and despite the recent increase in solar activity, the Sun is beginning to quiet down. For example, according to the Space Weather Prediction Center, the average number of sunspots in January was 112.6, which is almost half the peak in 2024. However, even considering this downward trend, it is still quite surprising to see such a rapid succession of clean days in the current cycle.
Typically, spotless days require waiting for the sun’s weakest phase, called solar minimum. For example, between 2018 and 2020, there were more than 700 spotless days before and after the last solar minimum, according to Spaceweather.com.
Further in the future
Several experts, including Scott McIntosh, vice president of space operations at Linker Space and former deputy director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, who was one of the first solar physicists to accurately predict SC25, previously told Live Science that solar activity could remain unusually high for several years after solar maximum.
A recent study by Linker Space also revealed that the years after solar maximum, known as the “war zone,” can be even more chaotic than the cycle’s peak due to instability between different parts of the sun’s newly flipped magnetic field. “There is a very real possibility that large and dangerous geomagnetic storms will occur in the coming years,” McIntosh told Live Science in December 2024.
According to the Planetary Society, magnetic alignment is more important than sunspot size or frequency when determining sunspot danger, meaning the next big storm could theoretically originate from almost any sunspot.
The worst-case scenario is a superstorm on par with the Carrington event of 1859. The Carrington event is the most extreme space weather event in recorded history, occurring during a solar cycle similar to SC25. Such a storm could wipe out nearly all the satellites orbiting the Earth and cause significant damage to the energy infrastructure on Earth’s surface.
A recent study published in October 2025 estimates that the chance of such an event occurring in the next 10 years is approximately 5%. We’ve also already seen several Carrington-sized sunspots during the current cycle, but none of them are very active.
All of this goes to show that, like any good book, you shouldn’t judge The Sun by its cover.
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