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The Sun's Odd Behavior

Posted by Soulskill on from the to-be-fair-it-was-a-little-tipsy dept.

gyrogeerloose writes "Most of us know about the sun's eleven-year activity cycle. However, relatively few other than scientists (and amateur radio operators) are aware that the current solar minimum has lasted much longer than expected. The last solar cycle, Cycle 24, bottomed out in 2008, and Cycle 25 should be well on its way towards maximum by now, but the sun has remained unusually quiescent with very few sunspots. While solar physicists agree that this is odd, the explanation remains elusive."

1 of 285 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Enough data? by Bobke · · Score: 5, Informative

    That is not entirely correct. There is a period after Galileo's discovery called the Maunder Minimum where sunspots "became exceedingly rare", from wikipedia:

    The Maunder Minimum (also known as the prolonged sunspot minimum) is the name used for the period roughly spanning 1645 to 1715 by John A. Eddy in a landmark 1976 paper published in Science titled "The Maunder Minimum",[1] when sunspots became exceedingly rare, as noted by solar observers of the time.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum

    So, is it really odd behavior?