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The GREGOR telescope allows scientists to resolve details as small as 50 km on the Sun [best photo in Comment #1].

Normal Axis tilt 23.5 degrees Current Axis Tilt & new Tropic lines

A massive sunspot on the Sun is turning towards our planet and this could result in strong solar flares. The sunspot AR2770 was detected earlier this week and is expected to grow in size in the upcoming days. A report by SpaceWeather.com - a space weather forecasting website - said that multiple minor flares have been emitted by the sunspot already as it faced towards the earth. These flares have caused "minor waves of ionization to ripple through Earth's upper atmosphere" but nothing major yet. A clear picture of the AR2770 has also surfaced that gives a better idea into...

Amateur astronomer and Florida resident Howard Eskildsen snapped an image of the "light bridge"—which has a length that's roughly equal to the diameter of Mars—in a recently formed sunspot dubbed AR2770, spaceweather.com reported. These phenomena are caused by strong magnetic field concentrations, which inhibit convection—the transfer of heat from one place to another within gases and liquids. This process heats the solar surface. Hot "bubbles" of plasma—charged particles that are one of the four fundamental states of matter—are transported from deeper, hotter layers to the surface, whereas cooler plasma is transported back to the interior... According to Felipe, light bridges...

The strong summer sun is capable of wiping out 90 percent or more of coronavirus in just 34 minutes, a new study has found. Scientists suggest that “midday sunlight in most US and world cities during summer” is extremely effective in inactivating the virus that causes COVID-19, according to the study published earlier this month. The virus, however, is most infectious from December until March — when it can live for up to a day or more “with risk of re-aerosolization and transmission in most of these cities.”

As of June 2020, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory – SDO – has now been watching the Sun non-stop for over a full decade. From its orbit in space around Earth, SDO has gathered 425 million high-resolution images of the Sun, amassing 20 million gigabytes of data over the past 10 years. This information has enabled countless new discoveries about the workings of our closest star and how it influences the solar system. With a triad of instruments, SDO captures an image of the Sun every 0.75 seconds. The Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument alone captures images every 12 seconds at...

Today's flare was an M-class eruption, so it was no monster. (And it wasn't aimed at Earth, so there's no chance of supercharged auroras from a potential associated coronal mass ejection of solar plasma.) But the outburst could still be a sign that the sun is ramping up to a more active phase of its 11-year activity cycle, NASA officials said. If that's the case, the most recent such cycle, known as Solar Cycle 24, may already have come to an end. Scientists peg the start of new cycles at "solar minimum," the time when the sun sports the fewest...

The last time this occurred was between 1650 and 1715, during what's known as the Little Ice Age in Earth's Northern Hemisphere... Scientists have known this solar minimum was coming because it's a regular aspect of the sun's cycle. Sunspots were peaking in 2014, with low points beginning in 2019, according to NASA. The sun is also responsible for what's known as space weather, sending particles and cosmic rays streaming across our solar system. The sun's strongly magnetised sunspots release solar flares, which can send X-rays and ultraviolet radiation hurtling toward Earth. Even when the sun is quiet during the...

The New York Post reports that the big, flaming ball in the sky is about to go into “lockdown” just like the rest of us. The sun is currently in a period of “solar minimum,” meaning activity on its surface has fallen dramatically.Experts believe we are about to enter the deepest period of sunshine “recession” ever recorded as sunspots have virtually disappeared.Astronomer Dr. Tony Phillips said: “Solar Minimum is underway and it’s a deep one.”“Sunspot counts suggest it is one of the deepest of the past century. The sun’s magnetic field has become weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the...

Patrick Rooney, Founder of Old School™ (Natural Health / Success / Freedom) comments on The White House Coronavirus (COVID-19) Task Force press conference Thursday, April 23rd, 2020. During the conference, Vice President Pence introduced William Bryan, Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary for Science and Technology, who gave a presentation detailing the amazing effect of heat, humidity, and particularly sunlight (U.V. light) in quickly degrading the coronavirus. Incredibly, the White House press was generally hostile to the report, with the conference marred by an obnoxious CNN reporter who refused to stop her line of questioning of President Trump. The spectacle was...

The Gateway Pundit reported back on March 21st that based on the data at that time the coronavirus had reacted negatively to heat. This indicates the virus would behave like strains of the flu and die out in the summer months. We added more to this yesterday and today we have additional information to support this claim. In a post on March 21st we reported that there were a number of anomalies with the data related to the China coronavirus. We listed the following observations:1. The current charts (by entities like John Hopkins) were not helpful as they instill fear...

“There are facts, and there are beliefs, and there are things you want so badly to believe that they become as facts to you.” And here I thought the science was settled; now this: Scientists say solar system affects Earth’s carbon cycle.What’s up with that? "Our work shows that for the 18 million years or so in between the Triassic-Jurassic mass extinction and the Toarcian oceanic anoxic event, Earth's global carbon cycle was in a constant state of change. Periodic changes in the shape of Earth's orbit around the sun impacted on the amount of energy received by Earth...

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket will launch the Solar Orbiter spacecraft for NASA and the European Space Agency tonight. It will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida during a 2-hour launch window that opens at 11:03 p.m. EST (0403 GMT on Feb. 10).

That fiery ball in space does settle down every 11 years or so. It’s called the solar minimum, and the Space Weather Prediction Center indicates that this phase of low sunspot activity will continue for a few more years. During a solar minimum, the sun has very few sunspots on its surface, which some speculate could affect the earth’s weather. In contrast, a solar maximum has more sunspots on its surface and solar activity is high. “Usually a solar minimum lasts about a year or so, but then sometimes it can last for decades or even longer,” said Prof. Jason...

In November 2018, as seen from Earth and certain spacecraft, the sun seemed to be calm. But it wasn't: The sun was experiencing what scientists call a "stealth" coronal mass ejection. And conveniently, NASA's Parker Solar Probe was completing its first close pass behind the sun, putting its instruments in a perfect position to see what was happening on Nov. 11 and 12 during this usually cryptic event. "If you've ever seen a coronal mass ejection image, you normally see a lot of activity in these images," Kelly Korreck, a solar physicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, said during a...

Sunspot activity on the surface of the Sun follows a well-known but little understood 11 year cycle. Activity rises and falls creating the so-called solar maximum and then solar minimum. During a solar maximum, the Sun is more powerful and is littered with sunspots. Conversely when the Sun enters a solar minimum – which it did about two years ago - energy from our host star begins to lessen. However, one expert has warned that the Sun will enter a period of “hibernation” this year, in what as known as a Grand Solar Minimum (GSM). **SNIP** “The reduction in temperature...

In collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA), the team is launching the Solar Orbiter that will use Venus's and Earth's gravity to swing itself out of the ecliptic plane — the area of space aligned with the sun's equator, where all planets orbit. From this position, the craft will feast its eyes on the first-ever look of the massive yellow dwarf star, which will provide scientists with better data to predict solar storms more accurately. Solar Orbiter is equipped with a custom-designed titanium heat shield coated with a specific phosphate that withstands temperatures over 900 degrees Fahrenheit, allowing it...

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...

Daily observations of the number of sunspots since 1 January 1900 according to Solar Influences Data Analysis Center (SIDC). The thin blue line indicates the daily sunspot number, while the dark blue line indicates the running annual average. The recent low sunspot activity is clearly reflected in the recent low values for the total solar irradiance. Data source: WDC-SILSO, Royal Observatory of Belgium, Brussels. Last day shown: 31 October 2019. Last diagram update: 1 November 2019. [Courtesy climate4you.com] *Deep solar minimum on the verge of an historic milestone* Overview The sun is currently in the midst of a deep solar...

Professor Valentina Zharkova’s recent paper ‘Oscillations of the Baseline of Solar Magnetic Field and Solar Irradiance on a Millennial Timescale’ has been accepted for publishing in Nature. It confirms a Grand Solar Minimum (GSM) from 2020 to 2055, as all four magnetic fields of the sun go out of phase, while also suggesting centuries of natural warming post-Minima. Zharkova’s team’s expanded ‘double dynamo’ calculations match-up almost perfectly with the timelines of past Grand Minimas: the Maunder Minimum (1645–1715), Wolf minimum (1300–1350), Oort minimum (1000–1050), Homer minimum (800–900 BC); as well as with the past Grand Maximas: the Medieval Warm Period...