Here's an image of the sun's cycle---real and predicted----from 1995 to 2015. The arrow points to where we now in the cycle.Currently there's no sunspot activity which would collaborate the above chart. This from NASA scientists who study sunspot activities:
Stop the presses! The sun is behaving normally.
So says NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. "There have been some reports lately that Solar Minimum is lasting longer than it should. That's not true. The ongoing lull in sunspot number is well within historic norms for the solar cycle."
This report, that there's nothing to report, is newsworthy because of a growing buzz in lay and academic circles that something is wrong with the sun. Sun Goes Longer Than Normal Without Producing Sunspots declared one recent press release. A careful look at the data, however, suggests otherwise.
But first, a status report: "The sun is now near the low point of its 11-year activity cycle," says Hathaway. "We call this 'Solar Minimum.' It is the period of quiet that separates one Solar Max from another."
Read more about solar max and minimums.
The sun has been worrying scientists for quite a while.
ReplyDeleteThe director of NASA's Heliophysics Division, Richard Fisher, sheds some light on the growing worry: "The sun is waking up from a deep slumber, and in the next few years we expect to see much higher levels of solar activity. At the same time, our technological society has developed an unprecedented sensitivity to solar storms. The intersection of these two issues is what we're getting together to discuss."
http://www.helium.com/items/1854504-whats-wrong-with-the-sun