Posted on 01/08/2020 10:16:33 AM PST by Red Badger
The cycle may result in dramatic space weather that could disrupt communications and power grids here on Earth.
Two new sunspots have ended a long period of relative quiet on the surface of our blazing host star, heralding the start of a new 11-year cycle of sunspot activity — resulting in sometimes dramatic space weather that could disrupt communications and power grids here on Earth.
The two new sunspots, designated as NOAA 2753 and 2754, were seen on Dec. 24 by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory — a satellite that monitors the exterior and interior of the sun from a geosynchronous orbit more than 22,000 miles (more than 35,000 kilometers) above the Earth's surface.
These are the first significant sunspots seen since November 2019 and indicate the onset of a new sunspot cycle — known as Solar Cycle 25, or SC25 — that is expected to reach a new peak of magnetic activity in about five years.
Visible sunspots are caused by magnetic disturbances in the sun that displace its bright outer layer and reveal the slightly cooler (and darker) interior layers, usually for a few days but sometimes for several weeks. They can vary in size, but are usually vast — often much larger than the entire Earth.
"The sun was spotless from Nov. 14 until Dec. 23," said Jan Janssens, a communications specialist with the Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence in Brussels, Belgium, which coordinates studies of the sun. "This 40-days stretch of spotless days is the longest in more than 20 years," he told Live Science in an email.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Complaining when there are fewer sun spots and now complaining when there are more?
Who’s complaining? Just stating facts.
I won’t know what to think of this until Greta Thunberg opines.
Mr. Sunny has zits!
Yay!!!
Sunspot Baby, she sure has a real good time!
Power grid affected by global solar climate change!
It’s not a sunspot. It’s a solar groundhog shadow.
Is this also President Trump’s and his Deplorables fault!
The best time to land on the sun is when it’s spotless.
You lose telemetry on the dark side and some don’t like to travel at night.
Thanks for the post. I’ve been following “The Grand Solar Minimum” channel. Everybody was placing bets on when the stretch with no sunspots would be broken. It will be interesting to see how the weather progresses in Solar Cycle 25. I’m hearing a colder February and a longer winter. Who knows.
Yeah, headed to a slowdown in sun’s activity which is not a good thing. Baby, It’s Cold Outside! And will be for a decade or so.
Lol. Yup. My father always said, if it isn’t one thing, its another....
The concern was that we were heading into a “solar minimum” which might adversely affect the Earth.
Essentially. The 2008-10 minimum was part of a cold stretch that ended with the 2016 Super El Nino. The low solar at that time led to a reduced El Nino in 2010. The sun primarily warms the oceans and that extra heat is sometimes released in El Nino. Without that extra solar heat we don't get the extra ocean heat.
Can you provide a link?
Thanks in advance.
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