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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2020

Is solar activity expected to reach an unusual low in the next decade?

Jacob Alabab-Moser, Gigafact Foundry
no

NASA predicts that the upcoming solar cycle, Solar Cycle 25, will be "weaker than average." But it's also expected to end a forty-year period of weakening magnetic fields on the sun. “There is no indication that we are currently approaching" what scientists call a grand solar minimum, says Lisa Upton, the co-chair of the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel.

The sun alternates between periods of violent activity called solar maximums, which feature solar flares and eruptions, and periods of relative calm called solar minimums. These periods shift approximately every 11 years, when the sun's magnetic poles flip.

The last grand solar minimum occurred in the middle of the Little Ice Age (13th through 19th century) causing "erroneous beliefs that another grand minimum could lead to global cooling." Today, scientists theorize the Little Ice Age occurred for other reasons.

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