Planets Control the Northern Lights?

Scientists analyzing a 438-year-old record of aurora sightings in Hungary discovered that the Northern Lights follow a secret rhythm. This cosmic beat perfectly matches the orbital cycles of the giant planets in our solar system, suggesting they influence the Sun’s activity.

Imagine dusting off a centuries-old book and finding a secret code to the solar system’s behavior. That’s essentially what researchers Nicola Scafetta and Richard C. Willson did. They analyzed the historical Hungarian auroral record, a detailed log of Northern Lights sightings stretching from 1523 to 1960. Because auroras are rare in Hungary, they only appear during major solar storms, making this record a fantastic diary of the Sun’s most powerful tantrums. When the scientists graphed the number of auroras per year, they didn’t see a random jumble of data. Instead, they found a clear, repeating wave-like pattern—a harmonic rhythm hidden in the historical sightings for nearly 450 years. This discovery suggested that something was driving the Sun’s activity on a very long and predictable timescale.

Read the original research paper ‘Planetary harmonics in the historical Hungarian aurora record (1523–1960)’

These historical records are like time capsules, letting us see long-term patterns that are invisible in our own lifetime.
— Nicola Scafetta, Researcher

The researchers found that the rhythm in the aurora record wasn’t just any pattern—it was a planetary one. Think of the solar system as a giant spinning machine. The Sun sits at the center, but the massive outer planets—Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune—pull on it with their gravity, causing the Sun to wobble slightly around the solar system’s true center of mass. These pulls happen at regular intervals based on the planets’ orbits. The study found that the major cycles in the aurora record (especially a 171.4-year cycle) perfectly matched the combined orbital rhythms of these planets. It’s like the planets are giving the Sun tiny, synchronized pushes. Over long periods, these small nudges can influence the Sun’s internal dynamo, amplifying its natural cycles of activity and creating a predictable ‘heartbeat’ for the entire solar system.

The four frequencies are very close to the four major heliospheric oscillations… caused by Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
— Scafetta & Willson, 2013

So how does a planet’s orbit in the outer solar system create beautiful lights over Earth’s poles? It’s a cosmic chain reaction. When the planets align and ‘nudge’ the Sun, its activity level changes. A more active Sun produces more sunspots and unleashes more powerful solar winds and massive explosions called coronal mass ejections (CMEs). These events send a storm of energetic particles hurtling through space. If Earth is in the path of one of these storms, our planet’s protective magnetic field (the magnetosphere) channels the particles toward the poles. As these particles collide with atoms and molecules in our upper atmosphere, they release energy as light, creating the aurora. Therefore, the planetary rhythm gets translated into a solar rhythm, which in turn becomes an aurora rhythm here on Earth. More planetary influence means a more active Sun, which means more spectacular auroras.

To uncover this hidden connection, the scientists used a powerful mathematical technique called harmonic analysis. This method is like taking a complex piece of music and isolating each individual instrument’s sound. They fed the 438-year aurora record into a computer model that identified the strongest, most dominant frequencies, or ‘notes,’ in the data. The results showed clear peaks at periods of roughly 43, 57, 86, and 171 years. Next, they performed the same analysis on data showing the Sun’s motion caused by the planets. When they laid the two graphs on top of each other, the peaks matched almost perfectly. This side-by-side comparison provided compelling evidence that the same planetary forces shaping the Sun’s wobble were also driving the long-term frequency of auroras seen from Earth.

Q: Are the planets really controlling the Sun?
A: It’s a strong hypothesis supported by this research. It’s not that planets ‘control’ the Sun with immense force, but rather that their tiny, rhythmic gravitational and magnetic pulls can synchronize with the Sun’s natural cycles over long periods, amplifying them.

Q: Why did they use an old record from Hungary?
A: Hungary is at a mid-latitude where auroras are rare, so they’re only seen during very strong solar storms. This makes the record a great indicator of major solar activity. Most importantly, it’s one of the longest, most consistent aurora records in the world, which is crucial for studying long-term cycles.

Q: What does this model predict for the future?
A: The model based on these planetary cycles predicts a prolonged period of low solar activity, often called a ‘prolonged solar minimum,’ centered around the 2030s. This could mean fewer intense solar storms and possibly less frequent aurora displays for a couple of decades.

Q: Does this mean planets on other solar systems affect their stars too?
A: Yes, and astronomers have observed this! Studies of other stars have shown that the presence of large, close-orbiting planets (like ‘Hot Jupiters’) can enhance the activity of their host star. This research suggests the same principle applies right here in our own solar system, just on a much longer timescale.