What the heck is going on with the Sun???

The Sun has been quiet this year and has little or no sunspots, but now we two rapidly emerging and they are getting stronger! M2 Class flare has been detected!

Is this the beginning of the end of the solar minimum?

Here is the latest according to spaceweather.com:

SOLAR FLARE: A new sunspot emerging over the sun's eastern limb unleashed an M2-class solar flare today at 1856 UT. This is the biggest flare of the year and it signals a significant increase in solar activity. NOAA forecasters estimate a 50% chance of more M-flares during the next 24 hours.

Just a few days ago the sun was blank--no sunspots. But now, with little warning, three big active regions have sprung into view. "It's March Madness," says Greg Piepol who photographed the trio from his backyard observatory in Rockville, Maryland: photo. Readers, if you have a solar telescope, now is a good time to monitor the sun.

Maybe the global cooling will stop that has been going on! We can only hope!

Sun Spot Image

[edit on 3/25/08 by mel1962]

[edit on 3/25/08 by mel1962]

Now a third sunspot has appeared, see photo linke below:

Third Sun Spot - Look to far left!

Suddenly the sun has awaken from its deep sleep! Another of the latest SOHO images below:

SOHO Image - Latest

Here is the SOHO link with the latest real time pictures of the sun!

SOHO real time link!

[edit on 3/25/08 by mel1962]

yep I think it's the start of a new cycle of increased solar activity.

and unfortunately I don't think it's a good thing, nor does it matter to the global warming in that increased solar activity would mean a bigger threat to our satellites, technology, astronauts, space program and our own geomagnetic fields.

I'm a believer in sun/earth activity correlations, both natural and human effects will be increased by solarspot activity.

familiar with Mitch Battros??? I'm not a subscriber, but I think he also feels that there are correlations with human behavior and natural earth events and sunspots.

Is our sun in its last days? The calm before the storm type thing. It is a sobering thought that our source of life could be on her way out.

If she does die like other stars, wouldn't that create a blast that would literally vaporize the galaxy, or most of it? Not real sure what EXACTLY happens when stars end their cycle...and not in the mood right now to research...

It now looks like there is a huge flare coming out of the 3rd sunspot, this is really weird!

Big Flare on 3rd Spot!

reply to post by worldwatcher


ww

You could be on to something, I feel the sun has a bigger impact than man, but we still have an impact there is no doubt about that, I wonder if earthquake activity will pick up also?

A solar minimum does NOT mean there is no activity, just less than the solar Max.

See article. Solar min should have started around 2006 but you can't really know that answer until a few years have passed to have a comparison. They have only been recording these max/min for 3 cycles now and theres much variation and unpredictability. I for one do not want to believe the solar min is over. I'm hoping it has just begun.,

Solar Min

Most of the worlds greatest advances were made during peak solar activity.It"s a new golden age! Rejoice in it!

Well, it looks like the three new sunspots continue to grow in intensity and this maybe just the beginning according to wired:

Prepare for the Worst!

Looks like things could get interesting stay tune!

Originally posted by rcwj75
Is our sun in its last days? The calm before the storm type thing. It is a sobering thought that our source of life could be on her way out.

If she does die like other stars, wouldn't that create a blast that would literally vaporize the galaxy, or most of it? Not real sure what EXACTLY happens when stars end their cycle...and not in the mood right now to research...

The sun wont explode. It does not have enough mass. It will eventually turn into whats known as red giant as hydrogen in the core expands and heats up. I saw a TV show that said its not known if the sun will consume Earth, and it may infact push us further out into the solar system. However it is known that in 5 or 6 billion years the sun will enter this phase and eventually expell its gas into space leaving only a white dwarf star. So that will pretty much be the end of life on Earth but hopefully we will have discovered how to travel to other planets by then

Originally posted by mel1962
Well, it looks like the three new sunspots continue to grow in intensity and this maybe just the beginning according to wired:

Prepare for the Worst!

Looks like things could get interesting stay tune!

Well on the positve side, the aurora's going to give us a kickass show from this

Too bad for the power grid and TV stations if we get a huge solar storm though

New solar cycles always begin with a high-latitude, reversed polarity sunspot," explains Hathaway. "Reversed polarity" means a sunspot with opposite magnetic polarity compared to sunspots from the previous solar cycle. "High-latitude" refers to the sun's grid of latitude and longitude. Old cycle spots congregate near the sun's equator. New cycle spots appear higher, around 25 or 30 degrees latitude.

science.nasa.gov...
spaceweather.com... (see upper-left hand image)

These sunspots are NOT part of the new cycle. They are all equatorial 'spots with the polarity of cycle 23, NOT cycle 24. We are NOT yet fully into cycle 24 IMO (even though that link shows that there has indeed been one high-latitude reverse-polarity spot).

I do think it's curious however that these are appearing at the end of the cycle ... perhaps a burp? Maybe a little foreshadowing of the next solar max?

As favouriteslave says, solar minimum does not mean there is no sun spot activity at all. A few sun spots are nothing unusual.


Click for full size version

As you can see from the graph, sun spot numbers can vary fairly dramatically... nothing to get excited about.