On July 31st, a tiny sunspot was born from the sun's interior, floated around a bit, and vanished again in a few hours. On the sun this sort of thing happens all the time and ordinarily it wouldn't be worth mentioning. But this sunspot was special: It was backward.
"Backward" means magnetically backward. Some scienti are explains, sunspots are planet-sized magnets created by the sun's inner magnetic dynamo. Like all magnets in the Universe, sunspots have north (N) and south (S) magnetic poles. The sunspot of July 31st popped up at solar longitude 65o W, latitude 13o S. Sunspots in that area are normally oriented N-S. The newcomer, however, was S-N, opposite the norm. This tiny spot of backwardness matters because of what it might foretell: A really big solar cycle. Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles, swinging back and forth between times of quiet and storminess. The next cycle, Solar Cycle 24, should begin any time now, returning the sun to a stormy state.
Satellite operators and NASA mission planners are bracing for this next solar cycle because it is expected to be exceptionally stormy, perhaps the stormiest in decades. Sunspots and solar flares will return in abundance, producing bright auroras on Earth and dangerous proton storms in space. The first spot of a new solar cycle is always backwards. Solar physicists have long known that sunspot magnetic fields reverse polarity from cycle to cycle. N-S becomes S-N and vice versa. The backward sunspot may be the first sunspot of Cycle 24.
"Backward" means magnetically backward. Some scienti are explains, sunspots are planet-sized magnets created by the sun's inner magnetic dynamo. Like all magnets in the Universe, sunspots have north (N) and south (S) magnetic poles. The sunspot of July 31st popped up at solar longitude 65o W, latitude 13o S. Sunspots in that area are normally oriented N-S. The newcomer, however, was S-N, opposite the norm. This tiny spot of backwardness matters because of what it might foretell: A really big solar cycle. Solar activity rises and falls in 11-year cycles, swinging back and forth between times of quiet and storminess. The next cycle, Solar Cycle 24, should begin any time now, returning the sun to a stormy state.
Satellite operators and NASA mission planners are bracing for this next solar cycle because it is expected to be exceptionally stormy, perhaps the stormiest in decades. Sunspots and solar flares will return in abundance, producing bright auroras on Earth and dangerous proton storms in space. The first spot of a new solar cycle is always backwards. Solar physicists have long known that sunspot magnetic fields reverse polarity from cycle to cycle. N-S becomes S-N and vice versa. The backward sunspot may be the first sunspot of Cycle 24.