Latest Sunspot Stories

The sun may soon begin moving into a more active period for sunspots, although forecasters predict it will be a fairly mild outbreak.But even one significant solar storm can wreak havoc on satellites and electrical systems here on Earth.A weak solar cycle refers to the number of storms, but it only takes one powerful storm to create chaos, according to Doug Biesecker, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) space weather prediction division.Indeed, a...

The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower.2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008.Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st,...

After two-plus years of few sunspots, even fewer solar flares, and a generally eerie calm, the sun is finally showing signs of life."I think solar minimum is behind us," says sunspot forecaster David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center.His statement is prompted by an October flurry of sunspots. "Last month we counted five sunspot groups," he says. That may not sound like much, but in a year with record-low numbers of sunspots and long stretches of utter...

An unusual absence of sunspots has many experts and record-keepers baffled as they wait to see how much time it takes for them to return to the star's surface. Sunspots are the result of the Sun's magnetic field tearing "˜holes' into its surface. Meteorologists use the arrival and disappearance of sunspots to gauge how active solar cycles will be. When the sun is more active, several sunspots can appear on a daily basis. However, very few have been spotted in 2008. Experts had even assumed...

Stop the presses! The sun is behaving normally.So says NASA solar physicist David Hathaway. "There have been some reports lately that Solar Minimum is lasting longer than it should. That's not true. The ongoing lull in sunspot number is well within historic norms for the solar cycle."This report, that there's nothing to report, is newsworthy because of a growing buzz in lay and academic circles that something is wrong with the sun. Sun Goes Longer Than Normal Without Producing...

Many solar scientists expected the new sunspot cycle to be a whopper, a prolonged solar tantrum that could fry satellites and raise hell with earthly communications, the power grid and modern electronics. But there's scant proof Sunspot Cycle 24 is even here, let alone the debut of big trouble. So far there have been just a couple minor zits on the face of the sun to suggest the old cycle is over and the new one is coming. The roughly 11-year cycle of sunspot activity should have bottomed out...

At 11:18 AM on the cloudless morning of Thursday, September 1, 1859, 33-year-old Richard Carrington"”widely acknowledged to be one of England's foremost solar astronomers"”was in his well-appointed private observatory. Just as usual on every sunny day, his telescope was projecting an 11-inch-wide image of the sun on a screen, and Carrington skillfully drew the sunspots he saw.On that morning, he was capturing the likeness of an enormous group of sunspots. Suddenly, before his eyes, two...

NASA scientists say a new solar cycle is beginning, and this could have important repercussions for space-based technology ranging from GPS navigation to weather satellites.On January 4, a reversed-polarity sunspot appeared, signaling the start of Solar Cycle 24. A sunspot is an area of magnetic activity on the surface of the sun that appears as a dark spot on its surface. Solar activity waxes and wanes in 11-year cycles and the previous solar cycle, Solar Cycle 23, peaked in 2000-2002 with...

A new 11-year cycle of heightened solar activity, bringing with it increased risks for power grids, critical military, civilian and airline communications, GPS signals and even cell phones and ATM transactions, showed signs it was on its way late Thursday when the cycle's first sunspot appeared in the sun's Northern Hemisphere, NOAA scientists said."This sunspot is like the first robin of spring," said solar physicist Douglas Biesecker of NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center. "In this case,...

The solar physics community is abuzz this week. No, there haven't been any great eruptions or solar storms. The source of the excitement is a modest knot of magnetism that popped over the sun's eastern limb on Dec. 11th, pictured below in a pair of images from the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).It may not look like much, but "this patch of magnetism could be a sign of the next solar cycle," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight...