Sun's Three Years in Three Minutes

In this unusual video, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory captures an image of the sun every 12 seconds in 10 different wavelengths, two images per day, for the past three years.

According to NASA:

"There are several noteworthy events that appear briefly in this video. They include the two partial eclipses of the sun by the moon, two roll maneuvers [by the observatory, as it changes position], the largest flare of this solar cycle, comet Lovejoy, and the transit of Venus. The specific time for each event is listed below, but a sharp-eyed observer may see some while the video is playing.” 

They appear at:

00:30:24 Partial eclipse by the moon

00:31:16 Roll maneuver

01:11:02 August 9, 2011 X6.9 Flare, the largest of this solar cycle

01:28:07 Comet Lovejoy, December 15, 2011

01:42:29 Roll Maneuver

01:51:07 Transit of Venus, June 5, 2012

02:28:13 Partial eclipse by the moon"

The music is violinist Martin Lass playing “Our Lady’s Errand of Love.”

Unexpected Drop in Solar Activity

Fading sunspots and weakening magnetic activity near the poles are signs the sun may be less active in the coming years. Three separate studies point to the sun heading into a more dormant period, with activity during the next 11-year sunspot cycle greatly reduced or even eliminated.

"The solar cycle may be going into a hiatus," Frank Hill, associate director of the National Solar Observatory's Solar Synoptic Network, said in a June 14 news briefing. today (June 14). "This is highly unusual and unexpected. But the fact that three completely different views of the sun point in the same direction is a powerful indicator that the sunspot cycle may be going into hibernation."

According to Live Science:

Sunspots are temporary patches on the surface of the sun that are caused by intense magnetic activity. These structures sometimes erupt into energetic solar storms that send streams of charged particles into space. 

Since powerful charged particles from solar storms can occasionally wreak havoc on Earth's magnetic field by knocking out power grids or disrupting satellites in orbit, a calmer solar cycle could have its advantages.

Astronomers study mysterious sunspots because their number and frequency act as indicators of the sun's activity, which ebbs and flows in an 11-year cycle. Typically, a cycle takes roughly 5.5 years to move from a solar minimum, when there are few sunspots, to the solar maximum, during which sunspot activity is amplified.

Click here for the complete article.

Sunspots Remaining Scarce

Sunspots have occurred less frequently during the past two years than at any other period for nearly a century. “This is solar behavior we haven't seen in living memory,” according to David Hathaway, physicist at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Sunspots and other clues indicate that the sun's magnetic activity is diminishing, and that the sun may even be shrinking, says New Scientist magazine. Together the results hint that something profound is happening inside the sun.

When sunspot numbers drop at the end of their typical 11-year cycle, solar storms die down. This “solar minimum” doesn't last long. Within a year, the spots and storms begin to build towards a new crescendo, the next solar maximum.

What’s special about this latest dip is that the sun is having trouble starting the next solar cycle. The sun began to calm down in late 2007, so no one expected many sunspots in 2008. But computer models predicted that when the spots did return, they would do so in force. This hasn’t happened.

Click here for the complete New Scientist article.

Sun Entering a Cooler Stage of Cycle

Evidence from tree trunks and ice cores suggest the sun is calming down after an unusually high point in activity. Scientists say the sun experiences 11-year cycles of activity and, at its peak, has a tumultuous boiling atmosphere that spits out flares and planet-sized chunks of super-hot gas. Then a calmer period follows.

Last year, according to the London Telegraph, it was expected that it would have been heating up after a quiet spell. Instead, it hit a 50-year low in solar wind pressure, a 55-year low in radio emissions and a 100-year low in sunspot activity.

Mike Lockwood, a professor at Britain’s Southampton University, believes we are witnessing an underlying solar oscillation lasting hundreds of years.
He suggests 1985 marked the "grand maximum" in this long-term cycle and the Maunder Minimum in the 17th century marked its low point.

"We are re-entering the middle ground after a period that has seen the sun in its top 10 percent of activity," Lockwood told the Telegraph on Thursday. "We would expect it to be more than a hundred years before we get down to the levels of the Maunder Minimum."

He added that the current slight dimming of the sun is not going to reverse the rise in global temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels."What we are seeing is consistent with a global temperature rise, not that the sun is coming to our aid," he said.

Click here for the Telegraph article.

Welcome back, Sunspots

I've drawn a circle around Sunspot 1005 on this NASA photo.

Sunspots have begun reappearing, perhaps signaling the end of a puzzling drought in solar activity. A new spot ~ called 1005 ~ appeared on Saturday, the third spot in three weeks.

The Sun this year began one of its 11-year solar cycles and since the beginning of the year had been nearly spot free. 

The amount of activity in a solar cycle influences earth’s power grids and satellites, and can be potentially damaging. Sunspots also are believed to have profound effects on Earth's climate, as explained in this earlier post.

Solar physicists are split on whether the coming months will produce a small number of sunspots or if the activity will dramatically increase. The faster sunspots return, the more severe solar weather will be in the coming decade, according to New Scientist.

Click here for the New Scientist article.

Spotless Sun Leading to Global Cooling?

This photo from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory shows what the sun looks like without sunspots.

As I write this, the outside temperature here in Portland, Oregon, is 98 degrees, as it’s been nearly every day this week. Yep, this is Global Warming for sure. And then I see an article – complete with a linked press release from NASA – about the potential for serious Global Cooling.

It seems we’re now well beyond Day 400 of no sunspot activity.

You may ask: “So what?”

It so happens that a lack of solar activity prompts a serious drop in Earth’s temperature and leads to severe cooling – known in the extreme as an Ice Age.

You may say: “But I thought we were experiencing Global Warming.”

Yes, well, that’s part of the confusion. This past winter saw record snowfalls in the Northeast, Britain had its coldest spring in decades, and China experienced its coldest winter in 100 years. Just yesterday the Chicago Tribune reported that there have been only 162 days of 90-degree-plus days since the year 2000, the fewest hot days in the city since 1930.

To quell growing concern in both the scientific and lay communities, NASA has released a press release. In it, NASA solar physicist David Hathaway says: “The sun is now near the low point of its 11-year activity cycle. We call this ‘Solar Minimum.’ It is the period of quiet that separates one Solar Max from another.” The press release states:

During Solar Max, huge sunspots and intense solar flares are a daily occurrence. Auroras appear in Florida. Radiation storms knock out satellites. Radio blackouts frustrate hams. The last such episode took place in the years around 2000-2001.

During Solar Minimum, the opposite occurs. Solar flares are almost nonexistent while whole weeks go by without a single, tiny sunspot to break the monotony of the blank sun. This is what we are experiencing now.

“It does seem like it's taking a long time,” Hathaway went on. “But I think we're just forgetting how long a solar minimum can last.”

The longest minimum on record is the Maunder Minimum of 1645-1715. During the 70-year period – called the Little Ice Age – a series of extraordinarily bitter winters hit Earth's northern hemisphere. Many researchers are convinced that low solar activity, acting in concert with increased volcanism and possible changes in ocean current patterns, provoked that 17th century cooling. During that cold spell, only about 50 sunspots appeared as opposed to the typical 40,000–50,000 spots.