Two sunspots are visible on our star's face for the first time in more than a year, possibly ending an unexpected lull in solar activity.
Solar flares rise and fall on an 11-year cycle, so scientists thought sunspot activity would pick up some time in 2008. It didn't. And this year has been quiet, too. No sunspots have been visible on the sun for 80 percent of the days this year.
Sunspot activity is correlated with the total amount of energy we receive from the sun. If the sun's activity were to change remarkably, it would have an influence on global climate. So, in the context of climate change, the fact that the current solar minimum has been the longest and deepest in more than a century has been of special interest.
In May, a big sunspot seemed to augur a return to normal, but it faded away and sunspotless days returned. The latest activity might not mark the end of the solar minimum, however. People have been counting sunspots since Galileo first observed one in the early 17th century. Through the 28 documented cycles, stretching from 1745 to today, some variation in cycle length has been observed.
That's why NASA's former chief sunspot watcher, Michael Kaiser, told us earlier this year that the minimum was "not out of the extreme ordinary."
The photo above is of one of the sunspots, AR 1026. It was sent to Wired.com by solar photographer Trevor Little. Little lives in southern England and snaps his gorgeous photos with "a Solarmax 60 telescope and a Lumenera Skynyx 2-0m CCD camera."
If you're an astronomer and you want to share images with Wired Science, please tweet us @wiredscience or send an e-mail to our editor, Betsy Mason.
(For you sticklers out there, the polarity of solar storms alternates, so technically, a full solar cycle is 22 years long.)
See Also:
- Psychedelic Sunspot Video Useful for Science, Too
- Big Solar Flare Portends Sun's Return to Normal
- Sunspot Appearance Marks Beginning of New Solar Cycle
- More about the Sun on Wired Science
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