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Mystery of the Missing Sunspots, Solved?

Posted by samzenpus on from the hide-and-go-seek dept.

PRB_Ohio writes "The sun is in the middle of a century long solar minimum, and sunspots have been puzzlingly scarce for more than two years. Now, for the first time, solar physicists might understand why. The gist is that there is a 'jet stream' like phenomenon about 7,000km below the surface of the sun. The streams migrate slowly from the poles to the equator and when a jet stream reaches the critical latitude of 22 degrees, new-cycle sunspots begin to appear. Scientists at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona, used a technique called helioseismology to track and analyze the streams."

6 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. Puberty by CosmicRabbit · · Score: 5, Funny

    My theory is way simpler. The Sun simply got out of puberty, and obviously acne started to disappear...

  2. Sunspot cycle by Psychotic_Wrath · · Score: 5, Informative

    Here is a neat article explaining more about sunspots http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2009/01apr_deepsolarminimum.htm?list56376/ It talks about the cycle in sunspots.

    --

    Doctors do Massage in Longview WA now, who knew?
  3. Ah, solar puberty . . . by StefanJ · · Score: 5, Funny

    So those coronal mass ejections we hear about were the Sun exploring . . . mmmnnnn never mind, I won't go there.

  4. Re:Old news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Its too early to tell yet, but cycle #24 is over 2 years late...

    We're pregnant, aren't we.

  5. Re:It's sort of refreshing... by riverat1 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I heard on the news today that the Australian Weather Service decided to stop calling it a drought because using the word drought implies it will end at some point and they don't see this ending anytime soon.

  6. Re:"century-class solar minimum" by Hellsbells · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It seems that our carbon emissions are also cooling Venus and Uranus.

    Or it could be that these planets temperatures are changing independently of both the Sun and our carbon emissions?

    There's nothing like some cherry picked data to prove a point.