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As soon as scientists began to study sunspots more seriously, they noticed a certain cycle of rest and activity that repeated every 11 years. Since the observations began in the 18th century, 24 such cycles have been recorded. According to a group of specialists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the Sun entered its 25th cycle in December 2019, writes sciencealert.com.
No one will blame you if you don’t notice the change: there were no flashes of light or cosmic fanfare. Only low-temperature shadows called sunspots appeared.
“We capture all the small sunspots that mark the beginning of a new cycle. They are like prophets of the future showing that huge solar fireworks await in the future. Only by following these changes over many months can we tell when the two cycles intersect, ”says Frederic Clette, director of the Solar Point Index and Long-Term Solar Observations at the Global Data Center.
However, despite the record of these 11-year cycles over many years, we still do not know what mechanisms govern these cycles. The periodicity of stars is a fairly common phenomenon, and there are many objects in the Universe that have light dimming cycles that are so regular that you can organize them together with your clock.
The best way to determine solar cycles is to analyze changes in magnetic fields, and they are controlled by deep and complex floating plasma currents.
What exactly attracts and pushes these currents and yet does so rhythmically is not yet clear, but the periodicity of the cycles is believed to be related to the orbits of the planets.
“As you move out of solar minimum and approach solar peak 25, it is important to remember that solar activity never stops: it is constantly changing, like a pendulum,” says NASA scientist Lika Guhathakurta.
Although the cycle of ups and downs lasts 11 years, much more precise is the cycle of the Sun of 22 years, during which the poles of the Sun change places.
Observing these changes allows us to more accurately predict cosmic weather, which is strongly influenced by large bursts of charged plasma and radiation released into space, especially at the Sun’s peak.
It will be another five years before we can say that we are already in the aggressive phase of the solar cycle. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t worry about it now.
We’ll see if the 25 Solar Cycle puts on an impressive show in the future, but it shouldn’t be too loud anyway. Cycle 24 was pretty quiet, but only compared to previous cycles, which were louder than usual.
However, as Doug Biesecker, chairman of the board of NOAA’s Space Weather Forecast Center and physicist points out, just because the solar cycle isn’t as active as usual doesn’t mean there’s no risk of extreme space weather.
It reminds us that the impact of the sun on our daily lives is real.
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