‘Current solar cycle intensity to peak in 2024, may impact Earth’s satellites’

The current ongoing solar cycle is likely to peak its intensity in 2024 and can potentially impact Earth’s space weather, according to researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata. It is known that roughly every 11 years, the intensity of solar activity reaches its peak, which manifests as violent disturbances in space weather such as solar magnetic storms or coronal mass ejections, impacting Earth’s satellites and telecommunications. “During intense solar storms, the Earth’s upper atmosphere expands outwards, thereby introducing friction on the low-Earth satellites. The friction can lead to a decay in the satellites’ orbits and reduce their lifetime. Thus, they are able to live in space for a much shorter time than they were originally supposed to,” Dibyendu Nandy, the study’s corresponding author and Professor of Physics and Head, Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India, IISER, Kolkata, told PTI. The researchers also said that the most intense of these storms can cause serious damage to orbiting satellites, electric power grids and telecommunications when directed at Earth. In their study appearing in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters, the researchers discovered a new relationship to help predict the occurrence of peaks in solar cycles, which are produced by an internal dynamo mechanism, harnessing energy from plasma flows inside the Sun.