The Sun's 'Quiet Period' Explained

Arvisp writes with this excerpt from the BBC: "Solar physicists may have discovered why the Sun recently experienced a prolonged period of weak activity. The most recent so-called 'solar minimum' occurred in December 2008. Its drawn-out nature extended the total length of the last solar cycle — the repeating cycle of the Sun's activity — to 12.6 years, making it the longest in almost 200 years. The new research suggests that the longer-than-expected period of weak activity may have been linked to changes in the way a hot soup of charged particles called plasma circulated in the Sun."

Re:Climate change

[jellomizer]

That is the thing about astroPhysics, that I really like. Any problems that occur isn't our fault. Here on Earth because everything is so tightly interconnected every problem can somehow be blamed on human intervention, and I am not denying that. But it is nice to have things that isn't our fault.

Re:Finally...

[mweather]

That's an odd reason to change the name, seeing as how the globe has only kept getting warmer.

Re:Finally...

[confused one]

There was also concern that widespread use of supersonic transport would add to the problem and force global cooling.

Re:This is why I hate most science reporting

[Mashiki]

"these days"?

Yes, these days. That would be 20 years or so. There was a point back in the 80's when what was reported actually reflected the events in hand. Things got better after the 70's, and hit shit again in the 90's.