{"id":239773,"date":"2026-06-27T03:13:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-27T08:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/solar-storm-unexpectedly-reduces-cosmic-ray-flux"},"modified":"2026-06-27T03:13:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-27T08:13:16","slug":"solar-storm-unexpectedly-reduces-cosmic-ray-flux","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/06\/solar-storm-unexpectedly-reduces-cosmic-ray-flux","title":{"rendered":"Solar Storm Unexpectedly Reduces Cosmic-Ray Flux"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"padding-right: 20px\"><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/solar-storm-unexpectedly-reduces-cosmic-ray-flux.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A solar storm hitting Earth appears to have reduced the amount of incoming high-energy cosmic rays, suggesting a new way of measuring solar activity.<\/p>\n<p>Solar activity has a well-known impact on the flux of low-energy cosmic rays that strike Earth. Now researchers have detected a solar-storm-induced change in the flux of higher-energy cosmic rays [<a href=\"https:\/\/physics.aps.org\/articles\/v19\/92#c1\">1<\/a>]. Using data from a large detector array in China, the team measured a decrease\u2014over several hours\u2014in cosmic-ray showers coming from a particular direction in the sky. The timing of this anisotropy suggests that cosmic rays heading into the outward-moving storm were preferentially scattered by the storm\u2019s magnetic fields. The results could lead to a new way to study the magnetic structures in solar storms.<\/p>\n<p>The solar wind\u2014the spray of charged particles continually emitted by the Sun\u2014partially shields Earth and other planets from cosmic rays that stream into the Solar System from all directions. The wind contains magnetic fields that help deflect the high-energy protons and other particles that make up the cosmic rays. In 2024, when the wind was at the peak in its 11-year cycle, the flux of cosmic rays was down by about 0.5% compared to the average.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A solar storm hitting Earth appears to have reduced the amount of incoming high-energy cosmic rays, suggesting a new way of measuring solar activity. Solar activity has a well-known impact on the flux of low-energy cosmic rays that strike Earth. Now researchers have detected a solar-storm-induced change in the flux of higher-energy cosmic rays [1]. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-239773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-particle-physics","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=239773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/239773\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=239773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=239773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=239773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}