Fire and Ice
by Robert Frost (1920)
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
-
'Something unexpected' is happening on the Sun, NASA has
warned. This year is supposed to be the year of 'solar maximum,' the peak of
the 11-year sunspot cycle. But 'sunspot numbers are well below their values from 2011, and
strong solar flares have been infrequent,' the space agency says.
The image above shows the Earth-facing surface of the Sun on
February 28, 2013, as observed by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) on
NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. It
observed just a few small sunspots on an otherwise clean face, which is usually
riddled with many spots during peak solar activity.
Experts have been baffled by the apparent lack of activity -
with many wondering if NASA simply got it wrong.
Then, a massive solar flare narrowly missing the Earth was reported in July and sometime last month, a solar flare blasting toward the Earth at speeds of 3 million mph a prompted another warning from NASA.
 |
| The sun, a solar flare and the relative size of Earth |
A solar flare is an
eruption of high-energy radiation from the surface of the sun. When the flare erupts
toward Earth, the magnetic energy can cause geomagnetic storms that can
interfere with satellites and cause power surges in electrical grids.
The latest report is that in the next two or three months, something
intriguing will happen: the magnetic field that emanates from the Sun and
extends throughout the entire solar system will reverse in polarity.
“It’s really hard to say exactly when it’s going to happen,
but we know it’ll be in the next few months, for sure,” says Andrés
Muñoz-Jaramillo, a researcher at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics who studies the Sun’s magnetic cycle. “This happens every solar
cycle, and it’s a very special day when it does.”
Recent observations indicate that the next solar magnetic
reversal is imminent — in August, NASA announced that it was three or four months
away. The reversal, explains Muñoz-Jaramillo, won’t be a sudden, jarring event
but a gradual, incremental one. “The strength of the polar field gradually gets
very close to zero,” he says. “Some days, it’s slightly positive, and other
days, it’s slightly negative. Then, eventually, you see that it’s consistently
in one direction day after day, and you know the reversal has occurred.”
It is not possible to say for sure which exact day
it will occur. Many are now asking if this is now the calm before a destructive storm.
