The sun: The Big Picture

The sun: The Big Picture

www.boston.com

The Sun is now in the quietest phase of its 11-year activity cycle, the solar minimum - in fact, it has been unusually quiet this year - with over 200 days so far with no observed sunspots. The solar wind has also dropped to its lowest levels in 50 years. Scientists are unsure of the significance of this unusual calm, but are continually monitoring our closest star with an array of telescopes and satellites.

(visit the link for the full news article)

I guess this rules out my postulation of solar flares being the cause of our atmospheric disturbances lately.
I wonder what this all means. I understand that the sun goes through active and inactive phases but is this unusually quiet for even an inactive time?
I don't think this is a BIG deal but still noteworthy in my opinion.
At the least, the pictures are quite eerie.

www.boston.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

actually, there has been sunspots lately... and they are part of the new cycle.

I think people need to stop reading into this so much at this point..... as I have a feeling in a year or 2 time, the story will be different.

and also, just because there isn't many sunspots, doesn't mean the sun is totally quiet... we just had a massive geomagnetic storm over the weekend with northern lights visible as far south as Montana.

if in another 11 years nothing is going on with the sun, i will agree, somethings up... but a year or two does not a cycle make.

Agree with the above sentiments that its a bit early to be concerned but I'd just like to say thanks for the link to the images, quite beautiful. It makes you wonder though why we can't get such detailed images/close ups of other planets - like the moon for example.

Cheers

Berth

[edit on 14-10-2008 by badBERTHA]

reply to post by pynner


Yes there has been a number of sunspots recently. Cycle 24 i believe?

The source of the geomagnetic storms on earth are solar particles emitted from coronal holes in the sun.

www.spaceweather.com...

Ah ok well there ya go!

Thanks for the links guys.

Like I said, I wasn't "reading into it" that much, I just thought it was interesting. I don't know much about solar cosmology so sorry about the ignorance. I do know that a year or two doesn't make a difference, still neat.

And yes the pictures are quite pretty.

reply to post by Mr Headshot


No problem. I personally believe this is the calm before the storm! Pardon the pun.

It has been suggested that the next peak in activity will be in 2012. So i would expect a significant increase in activity in a couple of years.

I totally agree with you logicalview... calm before the storm indeed.


also, I love that spaceweather site... been going there for a few years now, very cool and informative.

hmmmm so theres been no sunspots lately
www.abovetopsecret.com...