In a year when the sun has been utterly blank 80% of the time, the sudden emergence of two large sunspots in a single day is a noteworthy event. Today is such a day. NASA satellites and amateur astronomers are monitoring a pair of growing sunspots, both apparently members of long-overdue Solar Cycle 24. The emergence of these active regions is not enough to end the deepest solar minimum in nearly a hundred years, but they do represent a significant rise in solar activity.
Sunspot 1026 emerged yesterday to break a string of 19 consecutive spotless days. It’s about as wide as Earth, which makes it an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. Here’s a SOHO image of the spots:
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Filed under: Astronomy News • The Sun
Some climate scientists observing the sun with it's current, historically low number of sun-spots believe the next sun-spot cycle (10- 11 yrs) may be very weak also. Historical records of sun-spots versus climate indicate that associated cooling may persist over that same period.
Good thing she isn't looking through it properly. It appears that her scope lacks a solar filter for observing the Sun – if she looked at the Sun without that filter, she'd fry her eyeballs!