https://northernlightscanada.com/explore/solar-maximum
Every 11 years the Sun’s magnetic pole flips. Leading up to this event, there is a period of increased solar activity — from sunspots and solar flares to spectacular northern and southern lights. The current solar cycle began in 2019 and scientists predict it will peak sometime in 2024 or 2025 before the Sun returns to a lower level of activity in the early 2030s.
The most dramatic events produced by the solar photosphere (the “surface” of the Sun) are coronal mass ejections. When these occur and solar particles get spewed out into space, they can wash over the Earth and interact with our magnetic field. This interaction funnels the charged particles towards Earth’s own North and South magnetic poles — where the particles interact with molecules in Earth’s ionosphere and cause them to fluoresce — phenomena known as aurora borealis (northern lights) and aurora australis (southern lights).
In 2019, it was predicted that the solar maximum would likely occur sometime around July 2025. However, Nature does not have to conform with our predictions, and seems to be giving us the maximum earlier than expected.
Very strong solar activity — especially the coronal mass ejections — can indeed wreak some havoc on our satellite and communication electronics. Most often, it is fairly minor — we get what is known as a “radio blackout” that interferes with some of our radio communications. Once in a while, though, a major solar event occurs. The last of these was in 1859 in what is now known as the Carrington Event, which knocked out telegraph communications across Europe and North America. Should a similar solar storm happen today it would be fairly devastating, affecting major aspects of our infrastructure including our power grid and, (gasp), the internet itself.