One way to track the solar cycle is by counting the number of sunspots, which are dark, cooler patches on the Sun’s surface.

When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Credit: Created in Canva Pro by Daisy Dobrijevic 2024 was a busy year for solar news, but what ...

The massive sunspot that sparked an "extreme" geomagnetic storm in May 2024 unleashed hundreds of other dangerous solar ...

You could get more opportunities to see supercharged auroras over the next few months, thanks to our very active sun. Solar activity waxes and wanes on an 11-year cycle. The current cycle, known as ...

In the past one and a half years, the Sun has been rather dull: hardly a sunspot covered its surface, hardly a solar flare hurled radiation and particles into space. As observational data now show, ...

Alfredo has a PhD in Astrophysics and a Master's in Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces from Imperial College London.View full profile Alfredo has a PhD in Astrophysics and a Master's in Quantum ...

The sun has been spotless for 28 days straight, with a total of 184 days of 2020 now sunspot-free. This is one of the longest sunspot-free stretches in recent years. There was a 24-day stretch in ...

NASA and NOAA have confirmed that the Sun has entered a new solar cycle, with activity beginning to ramp back up from its minimum in December 2019. This next cycle is forecast to be rather quiet, ...

December 2019 marked the beginning of Solar Cycle 25. The Sun’s activity has quickly ramped up and even though we haven’t reached peak levels in this cycle, the Sun’s activity is already exceeding ...