An anomaly that has lasted for several days may be ending
Last Friday - June 3 - all spots completely disappeared from the Sun. The face of our luminary remained clean for four days. This was evidenced by images obtained using NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory). One barely noticeable speck appeared only on June 8 - on the fifth day.
The Sun was so clear for more than 4 days
Just one spot in 4 days. It will not be enough …
Similar anomalies have happened before - for example, in July 2014. But they weren't that long.
According to most astronomers, nothing particularly disturbing is happening on the Sun. It just entered the low of its 11-year cycle. And time will pass - the activity of the star will be restored.
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However, some scientists believe that there are still suspiciously few sunspots on the sun. And this lull testifies not to a cyclical decrease in activity, but to a steady one. Which, in turn, can lead to a sharp cooling on Earth.
INSTEAD OF COMMENT
Cleaner and colder
The consequences of getting rid of the Sun from spots began to scare back in 2010 - almost at the beginning of the current 24th cycle. Matthew Penn and William Livingston of the American National Solar Observatory (NSO) were especially zealous in this, noting that the solar wind, the stream of charged particles emitted by the luminary, began to weaken. His pressure, according to the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio (USA), has decreased by an average of 20 percent over the past 50 years. And the prominences - these peculiar indicators of the life of the luminary - became less and less from year to year. The previous - 23rd 11-year cycle - was the most modest in this sense in a century.
Pen and Livingston predicted that by the 25th cycle, the luminary will be completely cleared of spots. The phase of minimal activity will drag on for decades. And then sunspots may not appear at all.
Spots arise as a result of disturbances in individual sections of the solar magnetic field. They are also related to its size. For example, it is known: spots do not appear if the magnetic induction in them falls below 1500 Gauss.
From 1990 to the present, Penn and Livingston have surveyed several thousand sunspots. And they found that the strength of their fields decreased from 2700 to 2000 gauss. And it continues to decline. Individual "dips" up to 1800 have been recorded. That is, the state of the magnetic field of the luminary approaches the point that spots simply cannot appear. Gloomy predictions come true.
This is what a "normal" spotted sun looks like. For comparison, in order to estimate the size of the spots, planets are superimposed on it - Jupiter and our Earth.
Only 500 gauss are left to the threshold value of magnetic induction. The reason for the "weakening" of the Sun is not yet clear to scientists. Most likely, it is hidden in deep processes. Something has changed there. But what exactly? Perhaps, the circulation of plasma inside and near the surface of the luminary was disturbed.
Will the Sun plunge into a super-prolonged minimum of activity, as has already happened in the history of mankind? It is not excluded. For example, from 1310 to 1370 and from 1645 to 1715, the number of sunspots decreased a thousand times compared to "normal" years. And the Earth was covered by the so-called small ice ages. According to the chroniclers, then the Thames and the Seine were frozen, snow fell even in the south of Italy.
And tens of thousands of years ago, there were also "big" ice ages, when almost our entire planet was frozen.
A very calm Sun can turn the Earth into such a "snowball"
The beginning of a sharp cold snap is possible as early as 2020. But according to less gloomy forecasts, even a small ice age is not threatening us now. The abnormal calmness of the Sun will only slow down the progress of global warming.
Maybe the alarm will turn out to be false altogether - the spots are returning. So far - one thing. Others will certainly follow him, as happened two years ago.