The Solar Cycle
March 12th 2011 06:48
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A typical group of Sunspots
There is no denying it our Sun is a complex energy giving entity. Apart form the Sun giving us a stable orbit and Sunlight, heat we at times forget that our Sun is a Star all-be it a small star compared to others.
Image for Soho showing part of a solar flux
Over the centuries our perception and understanding of how our Sun works has grown many time over, yet there are still some mysteries that the Sun has not yet provided. In the past few weeks we were made more aware of the Sun’s recent activity with a series of large solar flares.
Our Sun undergoes a series of changes that cycle over a period of 11 years (it’s actually 10.6 years)
CURRENT MOON
Our Sun has periods of low solar activity and steadily increases over the cause of a decade or so.
When there are very little sunspots activity this usually means that the Sun is relatively quiet.
We have no answer to why the Sun goes through this cycle. Solar activity has waned during 2007 as this is considered to be low end of the solar cycle. We are approaching solar maximum. The Sun’s activity is expected reach peak activity in Cycle 24 is forecast for late 2011 or mid-2012.
That’s party why we are seeing more solar flares and is to be expected to continue until the Sun reaches it peak activity sometime in later part of 2011.
These change are perfectly normal and there is nothing to be alarmed about. Having said that there can be periods whereby the sun have fluctuations in the amount of solar radiation bombarding the Earth.
When the Sun is nearing it’s peak we can see huge dark areas on the surface of the Sun caused by huge magnetic storms from below the Sun’s surface.
These areas produce dark magnetic pools on the surface we call Sunspots. These pools of electromagnetic lines come from deep beneath Sun´s surface and rises into the very hot solar atmosphere, which is over a million degrees.
The size of the Sunspot does vary some can be as size of Alaska or even larger.
Massive waves forming in giant magnetic holes on the surface of the Sun have been discovered just Recently solar scientists from the University of Sheffield . It is discoveries such as this that will ultimately bring us a step closer to unlocking the secrets of the Sun.
Over the next few years we can expect an increase in solar disturbances that can cause wide spread outages to power and communications especially satellite communications.
If you lose your TV satellite channel it’s just the Sun having a hiccup or two.
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