Is Our Sun “Going to Sleep” in 2030?

“It looks to me like Cycle 25 is going to be not much bigger and probably smaller than Cycle 24. But I don't think anyone on the planet really knows.”

- David Hathaway, Ph.D., Solar Physicist, NASA Ames Research Centers, Moffett Field, California

July 17, 2014, the sun facing Earth had no sunspots.
Will Solar Cycle 25 be normal? Or is our Sun headed for a no sunspot
Grand Minimum? Image by Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

Solar Cycle 24 is the 24th solar cycle since 1755, when extensive recording of solar sunspot activity began. It is the current solar cycle, and began on January 4, 2008, but there has been minimal activity until early 2010. Solar Cycle 24 could break records as the lowest recorded sunspot activity since accurate records began in 1750. Graph by NOAA.

September 2, 2015 - NASA Ames, Moffett Field, California- On July 9, 2015, at a National Astronomy Meeting in the U. K.'s Llandudno, Wales, solar physicist Valentina Zharkova and colleagues from the U. K.'s Northumbria University, presented a computer model of solar activity projected some fifteen years into the future to the 2030s. Prof. Zharkova reported, “We found magnetic wave components appearing in pairs, originating in two different layers in the Sun’s interior. They both have a frequency of approximately 11 years, although this frequency is slightly different, and they are offset in time. Over the cycle, the waves fluctuate between the northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun. Combining both waves together and comparing to real data for the current solar cycle, we found that our predictions showed an accuracy of 97%,” said Zharkova.

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