I'm an experienced science, travel and photography journalist and stargazer writing about exploring the night sky, total solar eclipses, moon-gazing, astro-travel, astronomy and space exploration. I'm the editor of WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com, SmartTelescopeReviews.
, the sun is becoming more active more quickly than anticipated and will peak earlier than predicted. That peak will also last longer and could even peak twice, but it likely won't break records.
A service from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the new testbed prediction from the SWPC is its first for the current Solar Cycle 25 since, when it predicted that solar maximum—the most active point in the sun's roughly 11-year cycle—would occur during 2025. It also indicated that Solar Cycle 25 would be weak, which it has been anything but.The SWPC’s new window for solar maximum is between January and October 2024.
The SWPC now predicts a maximum sunspot number of between 137 and 173 in the month of the solar maximum, the date of which is only apparent in retrospect. The 2019 prediction from the SWPC was for between 95 and 130 sunspots at a peak likely to occur between 2023 and 2026. “We expect that our new experimental forecast will be much more accurate than the 2019 panel prediction and, unlike previous solar cycle predictions, it will be continuously updated on a monthly basis as new sunspot observations become available,” said Mark Miesch, aSunspots are dark areas on the sun's surface, typically on either side of its equator. They are caused by, and indicative of, changes in magnetic activity on the sun's surface.
Note: never look at the sun with the naked eye or through binoculars or telescopes that aren’t fitted with solar filters.
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