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‘Significant change’ in Sun’s activity may come as good news for sky watchers ahead of next year’s solar eclipse
Northern lights activity to increase during solar maximum. Electromagnetic activity is increasing as the sun continues to reach the height of its 11-year solar cycle, which NASA said is expected ...
The sun will reach solar maximum, or a peak in activity across its 11-year cycle, about a year sooner than originally predicted. Auroras, solar flares and space weather are all expected to increase.
The level of solar activity beginning in the 1940s is exceptional – the last period of similar magnitude occurred around 9,000 years ago (during the warm Boreal period). [ 11 ] [ 12 ] [ 13 ] The Sun was at a similarly high level of magnetic activity for only ~10% of the past 11,400 years.
Solar cycle 24 is the most recently completed solar cycle, the 24th since 1755, when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It began in December 2008 with a minimum smoothed sunspot number of 2.2, [ 3 ] [ failed verification ] and ended in December 2019. [ 4 ]
A prediction for Sunspot Cycle 24 (2008-2020) gives a smoothed sunspot number maximum of about 66 in the Summer of 2013. Current observations make this the smallest sunspot cycle since records began in the 1750s. [1] Solar maximum is the regular period of greatest solar activity during the Sun's 11-year solar cycle.
Scientists said the sun is now in its solar maximum, or the peak of its 11-year solar cycle.
Solar activity has been on a declining trend since the 1960s, as indicated by solar cycles 19–24, in which the maximum number of sunspots were 201, 111, 165, 159, 121 and 82, respectively. [14] In the three decades following 1978, the combination of solar and volcanic activity is estimated to have had a slight cooling influence. [ 15 ]