Mark Miesch is a research scientist at the University of Colorado and America’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Speaking to Times Evoke, he discusses the sun’s recent magnetic storm, its spots, flares — and its majesty:
Speaking with the careful precision of a scientist, Mark Miesch describes his efforts. ‘I work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Centre (SWPC). I mainly look for research advances in the space weather community and try to turn these into real applications that can improve space weather forecasting, such as our knowledge about coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and solar flares.’ Miesch’s voice warms slightly as he elaborates, ‘I also work on ‘the seasons of the sun’. I think of this as the solar cycle — humans have been seeing spots on the sun for centuries. These are caused by magnetic fields generated below the surface of the sun. After forming inside the sun, these pass through the surface, going into the solar atmosphere — that creates a sunspot. Over thousands of years, humans have seen how some days on the sun are very active — there are lots of spots. Some days are quiet with almost no spots. Almost 200 years ago, observers discovered a pattern to this — it goes up and down roughly every 11 years. Each sunspot lasts from a few days to a few weeks. On any given day, the number of spots varies spread over 11 years — these are ‘the seasons of the sun’.’
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These ‘seasons’ generate their own forces. As Miesch explains, ‘When such activity is high with many sunspots, we get a ‘solar maximum’. This is not a single day or month but lasts for two to three years. After this level of high activity occurs, the number of sunspots and solar storms tend to go down into a solar minimum. This pattern, from solar maximum to minimum, has been repeating itself for as long as we can tell.’ He adds, with a touch of wry humour, ‘It’s been traced back over 10,000 years but the sun has probably been doing this for much longer than that.’
Such solar activity, Miesch emphasises, is set to increase in 2024 with the solar cycle entering a phase of solar maximum now. ‘We are already there and throughout the rest of 2024 and 2025, we expect the level of solar activity to remain high. The last cycle — back in 2014 — was one of the weakest in a century. This level is more normal, with the sun experiencing greater action than in 20 years.’ This has implications for life on Earth though. As Miesch explains, ‘Our societies have become increasingly dependent on electrical power grids, satellites, global satellite navigation systems, airline travel, etc. This makes us vulnerable to space events — and episodes caused by solar storms.’
There are different kinds of solar storms. Many parts of the world recently saw wonderful auroras, of the kind normally making up the glorious phenomenon termed the ‘Northern Lights’. Miesch elucidates, ‘Solar storms cause such auroras — they come from coronal mass ejections (CMEs). This is like taking a chunk out of the sun, which is a hot magnetised gas or plasma. A portion is ejected and tossed out into space, turning magnetic energy into kinetic energy or the energy of motion. This CME — a cloud of hot magnetised gas — travels through space and if it strikes Earth, it encounters our own magnetic field. That wiggles and compresses when a CME passes by. This causes particles, mostly electrons, to accelerate, move following lines of magnetic force and come down into Earth’s atmosphere near the North and South Poles. When these electrons collide with molecules in the atmosphere, they make the air molecules glow — that is when we see aurora.’
THAT LIGHT IN THE SKY: Auroras — a glorious, surreal show of light in the skies, seen recently in May 2024 — occur when expended solar material hits Earth’s magnetosphere, causing it to shake, electrons to move and collide with molecules in the air, making these glow (Image: Getty image & iStock)
May 2024 saw a remarkable solar storm setting off amazing auroras across Earth, even seen in regions like Ladakh which are far removed from the usual setting for this. When asked why, Miesch explains, ‘It depends a lot on the magnetic configuration of the CME but, in general, more energetic CMEs disrupt the magnetosphere more. The bigger the disruption, the more it moves down to lower latitudes in terms of auroras. So, when we get bigger CMEs — which are more likely in a solar maximum — you see auroras in lower latitudes as well, as observed in May ’24.’
There are other kinds of solar storms. Solar flares are a burst of light where magnetic energy gets converted into light as x-ray wavelengths which are very short. As Miesch states, our eyes can’t see these. That burst of light hits Earth’s atmosphere and ionises with molecules and atoms — this disrupts radio communications in particular. Airlines rely on that, which makes them vulnerable to disruptions from solar flares.
Studying the life and times of the sun is thus vital for human well-being. Miesch explains, ‘We have many tools for this. Among others, we use the GONG Network — this is a collection of six solar observatories around the world, one being in Udaipur, India. These are placed at different longitudes, so that as Earth turns, at least two of them at any time are looking at the sun. So, we monitor the sun continuously when we combine these observatories around the world. We also have a fleet of satellites out in space — these spacecraft observe the sun in many different wavelengths or colours. That’s how we can see when a lot of magnetic energy emerges in sunspots and solar storms are likely to occur. It takes a CME typically two to three days to travel from the sun to Earth — so, when we see them leaving the sun, we have a few days to run models on supercomputers and predict exactly when they will hit Earth and how severe they will be.’
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Life on Earth comes from the sun. We all live because of it but at times, we can take it for granted. That cannot be said of Miesch though whose enthusiasm about the glowing star is now tangible. ‘What drew me to space weather and solar physics is that the sun is so many things — it’s part of our daily lives and we rely existentially on it. The sun gives us warmth to live and enables humans to grow crops which feed us and non-human animals.’ Life on Earth is a complex enough phenomenon but Miesch draws a larger picture. ‘The sun is also a window into the cosmos — it is a star in our own backyard. It’s a laboratory for astrophysics — we can see processes on the sun that are occurring throughout the universe but the sun lets us see these up close in glorious detail, something we cannot observe on any other astro nomical body.’ Miesch concludes, with a touch of sunny warmth in his voice, ‘The sun is a connection between our daily lives — and the universe.’
