The term ‘Solar Cycle’ refers to sunspot activity on the Sun and is often associated with the ebbs and flows of solar winds that power the Northern Lights overhead. It sounds complex, but let’s make it a simple thing for now. It’s about sunspots. Solar scientists have been counting the number of sunspots we can see on the solar disc for hundreds of years. They’ve figured out that approximately every 11 years the Sun’s magnetic poles flip, resulting in a period of intensity and turbulence that shows itself as highly active regions with multiple sunspots, flares and eruptions. This period of increased magnetic turbulence is referred to as Solar Maximum. And when the pendulum swings the other way and sunspot numbers are really low, it means there is very little magnetic turbulence, and that’s Solar Minimum. So, it generally takes about 5.5 years to go from Solar Minimum to Solar Maximum and approximately another 5.5 years to return to Minimum – completing one full cycle. See? Easy.

So what’s the connection? Well, sunspots are known to have temper tantrums. Ferocious eruptions with intense radiation and plasma blasts to be more precise. These eruptions occur when magnetic field lines suddenly cross, resulting in short circuits that we see as solar flares, and these flares can also be accompanied by enormous blasts of charged particles and plasma (aka Coronal Mass Ejections or CMEs) launching outwards into the solar system.

When these CMEs are Earth-directed, they sometimes slam into Earth’s magnetic field, which can lead to wobbling and/or intense turbulence in the magnetic field around our planet, causing the magnetic structures to thrust waves of particles into our upper atmosphere – and voila! Northern lights!

This isn’t new information, but it’s still very cool. The new and really interesting stuff is trying to use observation data as a foundation for improving economic outcomes in northern communities.

So have you ever wondered why aurora viewing hotspots like Yellowknife and Fairbanks see the Northern Lights far more frequently than other locations, even when the Sun is quiet? The answer lies in Earth’s magnetic field structures, and suggests that a community’s magnetic latitude (not geographic latitude) makes all the difference in the world when it comes to aurora viewing. So can the data collected over the past 14 years be useful to help communities determine the right years, the right months and even the best time for viewing auroras? Absolutely. There is an enormous volume of observation data collected by citizen scientist every night, data that is going to be instrumental to improving local readiness and economies across the North and across Canada.

To help us better understand the impact of the Solar Cycle on auroral activity in the North we’re working on AuroraMAX Legacy, a new citizen science initiative that builds on over 14 years of data collection from the AuroraMAX Observatory to help us explore and understand Canada’s Northern Lights like never before.

To kick off our Legacy efforts, Astronomy North is taking a deep dive into the archives, the science and the social media traffic in the years leading up to the last Solar Max in 2014.

Stay tuned for the launch of AuroraMAX Legacy in 2024 as we bring back cool photos, videos, social media and space weather data and talk to the experts about the drivers of geomagnetic storms and what to watch for in the months and years ahead!

A DYNAMIC SITUATION • Magnetic field dynamics are a major driver of solar activity and the Sun-Earth relationship. Magnetic reconnection events in Earth’s magnetic field generate nightly substorms at high latitudes, similar to this display above Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. (Illustration Credit: NASA. Photo Credit: James Pugsley, Astronomy North)

The term ‘Solar Cycle’ refers to sunspot activity on the Sun and is often associated with the ebbs and flows of solar winds that power the Northern Lights overhead. It sounds complex, but let’s make it a simple thing for now. It’s about sunspots. Solar scientists have been counting the number of sunspots we can see on the solar disc for hundreds of years. They’ve figured out that approximately every 11 years the Sun’s magnetic poles flip, resulting in a period of intensity and turbulence that shows itself as highly active regions with multiple sunspots, flares and eruptions. This period of increased magnetic turbulence is referred to as Solar Maximum. And when the pendulum swings the other way and sunspot numbers are really low, it means there is very little magnetic turbulence, and that’s Solar Minimum. So, it generally takes about 5.5 years to go from Solar Minimum to Solar Maximum and approximately another 5.5 years to return to Minimum – completing one full cycle. See? Easy.

So what’s the connection? Well, sunspots are known to have temper tantrums. Ferocious eruptions with intense radiation and plasma blasts to be more precise. These eruptions occur when magnetic field lines suddenly cross, resulting in short circuits that we see as solar flares, and these flares can also be accompanied by enormous blasts of charged particles and plasma (aka Coronal Mass Ejections or CMEs) launching outwards into the solar system.

When these CMEs are Earth-directed, they sometimes slam into Earth’s magnetic field, which can lead to wobbling and/or intense turbulence in the magnetic field around our planet, causing the magnetic structures to thrust waves of particles into our upper atmosphere – and voila! Northern lights!

This isn’t new information, but it’s still very cool. The new and really interesting stuff is trying to use observation data as a foundation for improving economic outcomes in northern communities.

So have you ever wondered why aurora viewing hotspots like Yellowknife and Fairbanks see the Northern Lights far more frequently than other locations, even when the Sun is quiet? The answer lies in Earth’s magnetic field structures, and suggests that a community’s magnetic latitude (not geographic latitude) makes all the difference in the world when it comes to aurora viewing. So can the data collected over the past 14 years be useful to help communities determine the right years, the right months and even the best time for viewing auroras? Absolutely. There is an enormous volume of observation data collected by citizen scientist every night, data that is going to be instrumental to improving local readiness and economies across the North and across Canada.

To help us better understand the impact of the Solar Cycle on auroral activity in the North we’re working on AuroraMAX Legacy, a new citizen science initiative that builds on over 14 years of data collection from the AuroraMAX Observatory to help us explore and understand Canada’s Northern Lights like never before.

To kick off our Legacy efforts, Astronomy North is taking a deep dive into the archives, the science and the social media traffic in the years leading up to the last Solar Max in 2014.

Stay tuned for the launch of AuroraMAX Legacy in 2024 as we bring back cool photos, videos, social media and space weather data and talk to the experts about the drivers of geomagnetic storms and what to watch for in the months and years ahead!