NASA claims the sun is 'waking up' and they have no idea why
Joe Yates
Featured Image Credit: Getty stock photo
NASA has claimed the sun is 'waking up', and it could cause major issues on Earth.
Between 1988 and 2008, our sun went through a major slump... although you probably wouldn't have noticed.
Its solar wind, which is basically a never-ending blast of charged particles it hurls across the solar system, got noticeably weaker over those 20 years.
Solar activity follows an 11-year cycle, and its intensity has gradually declined from the 1980s until around 2008, showing a long-term weakening trend over several solar cycles during that period.
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In fact, Solar Cycle 24, which kicked off in 2008, turned out to be the weakest solar cycle since we started watching space weather.
But since then, the sun's certainly put its hat on, as scientists measuring solar wind at Earth's distance - that’s about 93 million miles away - have spotted a pretty dramatic comeback.
From 2008 to 2025, here’s what’s changed: Solar wind speed is up by six percent, density has jumped 26 percent, its temperature has even risen by a sweltering 29 percent, the pressure and energy in the wind are up by 30 to 45 percent, while the sun’s magnetic field has grown by over 30 percent.
It's all according to a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
"All signs were pointing to the sun going into a prolonged phase of low activity,” lead author Jamie Jasinski, of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California, said.
“So it was a surprise to see that trend reversed. The sun is slowly waking up.”
This uptick in solar activity can have significant effects on Earth, particularly through phenomena like solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
These events are known to interfere with communication infrastructure - causing radio signal disruptions, satellite damage, GPS inaccuracies, and even large-scale electrical grid disturbances.
The upside of it is that when the sun ejects high-energy charged particles during such events, they can interact with Earth’s magnetic field and upper atmosphere, triggering beautifully vivid displays of auroras in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.
Scientists have monitored the sun’s activity for centuries, with historical records noting a prolonged period of unusual quiet between 1790 and 1830 - one of the most significant anomalies observed to date.
“We don’t really know why the sun went through a 40-year minimum starting in 1790,” Dr Jasinski said.
“The longer-term trends are a lot less predictable and are something we don’t completely understand yet.”