This solar event only happens once every 11 years and signals what physicists call the Solar Maximum – a time when the Sun’s solar activity is at its highest. 

During this peak in activity the outbursts of solar energy can increase the amount of cosmic and UV rays coming towards Earth and this can interfere with radio communications, cause solar bursts of light – known as flares – and can affect the planet’s temperature.

‘It looks like we’re no more than three to four months away from a complete field reversal,’ solar physicist Dr Todd Hoeksema of Stanford University told Nasa Science.