Every 11 years or so , our sun suddenly becomes a much busier place , with sunspot , flare , and all manner of activity bursting from its aerofoil . But , although the results are well-defined enough , no one was quite sure why . Now , investigator think they ’ve lastly find an result to this 4 - C quondam scientific mystery .
Top Image : Progression of solar activity , Judith Lean at the US Naval Research Laboratory
Instead of looking at just the sunspots for an response , a squad led by Scott McIntosh of the National Center for Atmospheric Researchlooked instead to the sun ’s “ brightpoints ” ( just like it sounds , point of unusual brightness on the sun ) , which they used to get a better idea of what was going on beneath the sun ’s open .
Using the brightpoints , they were able to come up with a model of how magnetic fields move around the sun , converging on its equator , like so :
Image : Scott McIntosh / National Center for Atmospheric Research
Even more intriguingly , they say that what they ’ve observed about the move of the fields evidence us that what we ’re actually see every 11 year ( give or take a year or two ) is not one single cycle happening on the sun . It ’s actually the impression of multiple wheel overlapping :
While the field lines remain relatively myopic like this , the sun ’s magnetic organization is calmer , producing fewer macula and few eruptions . This is solar minimum . But once the two low - line of latitude marching bands reach out the equator their polarities essentially offset each other out . Abruptly they disappear . This process , from migratory starting line to finish at the equator take 19 years on median , but is seen to change from 16 to about 21 years .
Of naturally , the hypothesis is still in its working point , but scientists wo n’t have to wait to long to notice out if their model is accurate . Using the newfangled model , they were capable to predict when we would see the next solar lower limit , in 2017 , and solar maximum , in belated 2019 to early 2020 .
you could read thefull studyover in Astrophysical Journal .
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