Written in SCIENCE he
Sun physics scientists Scott McIntosh and Bob Leamon predicted in a study the ‘Terminator event’; a worrisome solar storm which will arrive in late 2023 or early 2024. The “Termination Event” is a new idea in solar physics, described by both experts in an article published in December 2020 in the journal Solar Physics which describes the beginning of Solar Cycle 25.
Although not all physicists accept the ‘terminator event‘, if it develops as predicted by the scientists in your study, it will have to be taken very seriously. This phenomenon is understood as follows; Solar Cycle 25 (SC25) began in December 2019, but the old Solar Cycle 24 (SC24) refused to disappear, and was maintained for 2 more years; that is to say until 2021, which produced several sunspots that obstruct the upper layers of the sun with its decaying magnetic field.
During this time the two cycles coexisted, SC25 struggling to break free while the old SC24 held it back. Although scientists know that solar cycles can overlap, the finding provided by Scott McIntosh and Bob Leamon is that this type of overlapping cycles interact and when this phenomenon occurs naturally they interfere with each other, so the “terminator event” is the end of the interference, when a new cycle can be freed from the previous one.
He terminator event which will be when solar cycle 25 breaks free from SC24 will have its peak in late 2023 or early 2024. Each cycle is estimated to last 11 years, so the end of solar cycle 24 is yet to come, but as As a consequence, the polarity of the Sun will change and the new cycle will appear with more intensity, so the star could experience violent collisions within its magnetic fields that would lead to plasma tsunamis.
This is how the ‘Terminator event’ will affect Earth
It was from 2022 that the Sun Cycle 25 began to gain momentum, which has exceeded official predictions according to the alternative forecast issued by the team led by both scientists. the end of ‘terminator event’ it will lead to what solar physicists know as the Hale cycle; a 22-year cycle of magnetic activity spanning two 11-year solar cycles.
During the Hale cycle, magnetic waves of opposite polarity move from the sun’s poles toward the equator where they meet and cancel each other. When these magnetic field lines are about halfway through their journey, the star’s magnetic field reverses, corresponding to the approximate time of solar maximum. The Hale cycle is complete when the magnetic field returns to its original state after two solar cycles.
For us on Earth, the end of the ‘terminator event‘ means that we will experience a period of more frequent and intense solar auroral displays, but also of more intense space weather events that can create problems in the earth orbit.
Auroras are produced from interactions between material flowing from the sun and the Earth’s magnetic field; however, similar reactions produced by these amazing natural light shows thicken the planet’s residual atmosphere at high altitudes where the satellites orbit. That leads to increased drag that can cause them to fall out of orbit.
For example, in February 2022, SpaceX lost a batch of 40 new Starlink satellites after launching them in what forecasters considered a solar storm mild. When a terminator event As it takes place, worrying and dangerous solar storms can occur, so although it will start at the beginning of 2024, the most powerful effects would occur between 2025 and 2026.
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