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Last Post 10/25/2019 5:59 AM by  Mitzi Adams
Sunspots - what's new and interesting
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10/24/2019 3:13 PM
    I've read fascinating things about sunspots and how they affect things on earth, I'd be interested to know if you're learning new and interesting things about sunspots.
    Tags: sunspots, research

    Mitzi Adams



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    Posts:101
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    10/25/2019 5:59 AM
    At the moment, no. We are in the midst of solar minimum, when there are few to no sunspots. More broadly, there were large solar cycles from the fifties up to about 2009, when we experienced a very deep minimum with no sunspots for about a year. This past cycle was small, and this minimum could last as long as the last one. Researchers are trying to understand exactly how and why this happens. You can read all about the solar cycle here:
    http://solarcyclescience.com/solarcycle.html
    There is a graph of monthly averaged sunspot numbers plotted against time here:
    http://solarcyclescience.com/bin/Zurich_MASN.png
    You can see by the height of the curve for cycle 24, that it is much smaller then 19, 21, 22, and 23, and a bit amaller than 20.
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