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Forbes
05-05-2025
- Science
- Forbes
In Photos: Giant Sunspot Appears On The Sun — How To Safely See It
A giant black spot has appeared on the sun's disk — and you'll need to go find an old pair of solar eclipse glasses to safely see it with your own eyes. At over 87,000 miles (140,000 kilometers) wide, the sunspot — called AR 4079 by solar scientists who track the sun each day — is the largest of 2025 so far. Earth's diameter is 7,926 miles (12,756 kilometers). The sun only occupies half a degree of the sky, so trying to find it while wearing solar eclipse glasses is not easy. Here's how to see the sunspot: Note: it is dangerous to look at the sun through anything other than a pair of certified safe solar filters (solar eclipse glasses) bearing the ISO 12312-2 international safety standard. Don't make your own, don't use sunglasses and don't use welder's glass (sometimes the latter is safe, but only if it's Grade 13 or 14, which is hard to check). The American Astronomical Society keeps a list of Suppliers of Safe Solar Filters & Viewers. A sunspot is a magnetic disturbance on the sun's surface. Appearing on the sun's visible surface — called the photosphere — they're cooler regions on the sun caused by a concentration of magnetic field lines, according to NASA. The "AR" in a sunspot's name stands for active region because sunspots are areas of intense and complex magnetic fields and the source of solar eruptions — solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Solar flares are intense blasts of radiation that travel at light speed, while CMEs are vast clouds of charged particles that travel more slowly but are a major cause of geomagnetic storms on Earth. CMEs are frequently the root cause of displays of the northern and southern lights. In the wake of last May 10-11's displays of aurora — the most intense since 2003, according to NASA — scientists announced the arrival of the solar maximum period. However, there is a good chance of an extended period of solar activity through 2025. The number of sunspots wax and wane according to where the sun is in its solar cycle, which is, on average, 11 years long. The sun is currently at solar maximum, meaning the sunspots are bigger and more numerous than usual. AR 4079 is about half the size of the sunspot seen during the "Carrington Event" in early September 1859. The landmark solar event saw astronomer Richard C. Carrington observe the most powerful solar flare ever recorded, which later created auroras down to the tropics. The giant sunspot comes days after the world's largest solar telescope published its first spectacular image of the sun. A new instrument on the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Haleakala, Hawaii, captures sunlight signals over a narrow range of frequencies, allowing it to map magnetic fields, solar flares and plasma at new levels of detail. Its new image revealed a cluster of sunspots covering 241 million square miles of the sun's surface. Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
Forbes
02-05-2025
- Science
- Forbes
Why Last May's Once-A-Century Northern Lights Could Soon Be Repeated
A sky of reds, pinks, blues, purples and greens. If you were outside on the night of May 10-11, 2024 — even on the equator — and you had a clear sky, you were treated to a display of the Northern Lights like no other. The auroral oval tends to stretch around the night side of Earth at about 60 to 70 degrees north and south latitudes, but on that night, it was seen as far south as Mexico and west Africa and as far north as Australia, Chile and Argentina, according to EarthSky. Could it happen again this May? There are reasons to believe that, yes, it could. The geomagnetic storm triggered on May 10-11 was caused by five coronal mass ejections that left the sun a few days earlier in the wake of some powerful X-class solar flares. These clouds of charged particles traveled to Earth separately but at different speeds, arriving at Earth almost simultaneously. 'The display in May was off the charts,' said Tom Kerss, author of The Northern Lights: The Definitive Guide to Auroras and chief aurora hunter for Hurtigruten, in an interview. Literally — in the wake of the display, NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center appealed to scientists to suggest how the geomagnetic storm scale could be reconfigured. Massive geomagnetic storms are rare, but they are a natural effect of the sun. The most famous, the so-called "Carrington Event," occurred in early September 1859, when astronomer Richard C. Carrington observed the most powerful solar flare ever recorded. It sparked auroras down to the tropics. "What happened in May wasn't exactly a Carrington Event, but for the sake of latitude, it was very similar," said Kerrs. "It probably didn't put as much energy into the ionosphere, but it produced visible auroras just next to the equator, which hasn't happened since 1859." May 10-11's displays were certainly the most intense since 2003, according to NASA, and some of the strongest auroras for 500 years. May 2025's display was followed by other impressive displays at southerly latitudes — though not as far south as the equator — on October 10-11 and January 1-2. Speaking generally, there's a simple explanation. 2024 saw the sun at solar maximum, the peak of the 11-year solar cycle. "Solar maximum is a period of heightened solar activity," said Kerss. "This increased activity leads to more frequent and intense geomagnetic storms, which in turn produce stronger and more visible auroras." Although they announced the arrival of solar maximum last October, NASA and NOAA space weather scientists still don't know specifically when it will peak and decline. 'This announcement doesn't mean that this is the peak of solar activity we'll see this solar cycle,' said Elsayed Talaat, director of space weather operations at NOAA. 'While the sun has reached the solar maximum period, the month that solar activity peaks on the sun will not be identified for months or years.' However, there is a chance of an extended period of activity well beyond the peak of the solar cycle. Even when the sun's magnetic activity begins to wane, there's a good chance another landmark display of aurora could result. 'This period of solar decline is marked by a decreasing number of sunspots, but not necessarily by fewer impacts, even after the solar maximum," said Lisa Upton, co-chair of Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel and lead scientist at Southwest Research Institute. In fact, the declining phase is notable for having very strong solar events. Aurora-chasers know all this. "The best shows often occur in the 2 or 3 years after solar max, so we have several more years to look forward to seeing the Lights dance in our skies," said Alan Dyer, an experienced aurora-chaser." Kerss agrees: "The current solar cycle is expected to have a long tail of activity, potentially providing good aurora sightings for several years to come." Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
Forbes
10-04-2025
- Climate
- Forbes
Northern Lights Alert: 12 States May See Aurora Around The ‘Pink Moon' Tonight
Northern U.S. states could see the northern lights Thursday night, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The forecast from NOAA of a Kp index of four on a scale of nine for Thursday comes as a 97%-lit waxing gibbous moon shines brightly, bleaching the night sky and making faint phenomena — such as aurora — harder to see. It will rise during dusk on Friday as the full pink moon — here's exactly when to see it from where you are. Although the strong moonlight won't help, from the Northern Hemisphere, the moon shines in the south, while the northern lights tend to be seen on the northern horizon. According to NOAA, for a Kp in the range of 3 to 5, 'if you are in the right place, these aurora can be quite pleasing to look at.' Parts of U.S. states that could potentially see aurora, according to NOAA, include northern Washington, northern Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine and along the U.S.-Canada border in Vermont and New Hampshire. Alaska has a very high likelihood of seeing aurora, as does most of Canada save for southern New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The aurora is usually seen from an auroral oval that hangs over polar regions at around latitudes of 70 degrees north and south at the Arctic and Antarctic Circles. However, that auroral oval can bulge, with displays seen as low as 25 degrees north and south of the equator. The northern lights are most easily seen from September through March from across Alaska, northern Canada, northern Scandinavia and northern Russia, purely because there are more hours of darkness and darker nights. However, when the auroral oval bulges during April and May it can extend into regions where there is still darkness — such as North America and Europe — as seen with the major display on May 10-11 last year. The southern lights (aurora australis) can be glimpsed most easily between March and September in the south of New Zealand. The relative lack of landmass in the southerly regions of the Southern Hemisphere makes the aurora australis more difficult to see than its northern counterpart. If either a solar flare (which travels at light speed) or a coronal mass ejection (which takes a few days to arrive at Earth) is strong enough, it can potentially devastate satellites, harm astronauts and damage electrical grids on the ground. Minor events regularly cause radio outages for mariners and short-wave radio users. Major solar superstorms involving planet-wide aurora are rated as once-a-century events. The three we have records of occurred in quick succession — in 1859, 1872 and 1921 — over a century ago, so we're probably due another one. The most intense solar storm was the so-called 'Carrington Event' of Sept. 2, 1859, when astronomer Richard C. Carrington observed a blast of white light from the sun for about five minutes. It was the biggest solar flare ever recorded, an X45, and produced planet-wide auroras. However, according to Live Science, it caused few issues to pre-industrial society besides electric shocks to telegraph operators. A solar storm of similar intensity right now could have catastrophic effects; solar storms in Quebec, Canada, in 1989 and in Malmö, Sweden, in 2003 knocked out electricity grids. According to one study, it could cause over $41.5 billion of economic loss per day in the U.S., while another suggests that the internet could be at risk. Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.
