A"CANNIBAL" IS ON IT'S WAY FROM THE SUN BUT NOT TO PANIC AS ,THE NORTHERN LIGHTS WOULD BE VERY MUCH VISIBLE.

By Chandrayee Roy Choudhury, Canada

Over the past few days, the sun has been alive with a flurry of activity, with sunspots spewing out magnetic energy and releases of fast-moving particles called coronal mass ejections (CMEs).



The good news is that for us here on Earth, and particularly in Canada, it means a geomagnetic storm and the increased possibility of catching the northern lights.



While the sun is always active, it has an 11-year cycle with a minimum and a maximum of activity. During the solar maximum — which we have just begun — more sunspots can be seen across the sun's surface. 

These sunspots are cooler regions that appear black when seen through solar telescopes. But they're more than just a little black spot on the sun: these regions are an entanglement of magnetic fields that can sometimes erupt with a solar flare. And very often, they are followed by a coronal mass ejection, a huge burst of charged particles that are carried along the solar wind.