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The sun has a big year in 2024, starting with a total solar eclipse across the US.
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As the sun increases to maximum activity, watch out for the northern lights too.
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NASA’s Parker Solar Probe will fly closer to the sun than any spacecraft ever, almost landing on it.
The sun has been on display for the past year, with dramatic eruptions, sunspots, giant “holes” and even a 14-world-high plasma tornado. But 2024 may be our star’s biggest year yet.
That’s what giddy NASA scientists told reporters at the American Geophysical Union’s fall meeting in San Francisco in December. In true NASA fashion, they are calling it “the big year of heliphysics”.
One of the main events this year will be a spectacular and historic total solar eclipse crossing the US in April. It is estimated that up to 7.4 million people will travel to the path of totality to witness the rare event.
Another exciting event involves NASA’s primary solar probe, which will be ready to skim the surface of the sun in December, flying closer than any previous spacecraft.
Meanwhile, the Northern and Southern Lights are sure to have a great year, too.
Already, we have seen a beautiful Aurora as far south as Arizona in the past year. And as stormy activity on the sun increases, which helps spark auroras around the world, we may continue to see the Northern Lights light up skies across the US at unusually low latitudes.
For viewers in Australia, New Zealand, and South America, the Southern Lights (aurora australis) are sure to make spectacular displays as well.
It will be about 11 years – a full solar cycle – before the aurora is as active again.
“The sun touches everything, and we’re challenging you to experience the sun in as many ways as possible,” Kelly Korreck, NASA’s program manager for the upcoming eclipse, said during the AGU roundtable. .
The solar year begins with a total eclipse
While the rest of us put on our eclipse glasses or look out for the pink and green ribbons of the aurora, astronomers will be busy at work. This year’s solar events are a huge scientific opportunity.
For example, NASA is launching three rockets during the April total solar eclipse, loaded with instruments to study how the sudden darkness changes our upper atmosphere.
A total solar eclipse gives scientists a unique opportunity to observe the corona – the outer layer of the sun’s atmosphere. The corona is over 100 times hotter than the sun’s surface, but scientists can’t explain why and it’s one of the biggest mysteries in our solar system. Because the moon blocks the main disk of the sun during an eclipse, only the corona is visible.
NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter will also be watching the eclipse from two different vantage points in space, orbiting close to the sun. That extra data can help scientists get 3D observations of the corona, as well as validate measurements from Earth-based observatories.
That is just one rainbow moment of the great year of the sun. During 2024, as solar activity increases, a number of observatories and physicists will be watching closely.
The sun will get bigger and more active
When the sun shoots plasma and charged particles into space, they can accelerate toward Earth, travel down our planet’s magnetic field lines toward the poles, and interact with molecules in our atmosphere to form the aurora. They can also remove satellites from orbit and boost through ground-based technologies, causing radio blackouts and interference with GPS.
This “solar wind” flows constantly, but eruptions on the sun can send a powerful flood of solar wind towards our planet. That’s what scientists call space weather. These storms are occurring more and more as the sun climbs towards peak activity.
People on Earth are safe from these bursts of solar activity, except in rare cases where they may cause power or radio blackouts. But as NASA and other space agencies send humans back to the moon and Mars, space weather will become a safety issue for them.
Studying solar flares and flares can help scientists better predict future space weather. That could be crucial for long-distance space flights.
“If we want to win the race to Mars, we need to have an awareness of space weather all over the place,” said Nour Raouafi, chief scientist for the Parker Solar Probe, at the roundtable.
NASA to almost land on the sun at the end of the year
The “crown jewel” of the big year of the sun comes on December 24, however, Raouafi said. That’s when the Parker Solar Probe will fly closer to the sun than any spacecraft has ever flown, about 3.8 million miles from its surface.
By comparison, Earth is 93 million miles from the sun.
At this close proximity, the probe will be exposed to extreme heat and radiation, with temperatures as high as 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit.
Collecting data so close to the source of the solar wind will help scientists understand how it forms. It will also encourage the study of the crown.
“This is a significant achievement for all of humanity. This is equivalent to the moon landing of ’69. Now we are almost almost landing on a star,” said Raouafi.
Read the original article on Business Insider
