Are you dissatisfied by the sunspot numbers we aren’t having? Soumyadeep Mukherjeee of Kolkata, India, has found an optimistic way to look at young Solar Cycle 25. Add together a hundred days of sunspot activity (see image).
“I imaged the sun for 100 days in a row, from 25th December 2020 to 3rd April 2021,” says Mukherjeee. “This image is a blend showing every sunspot that has appeared on the solar disk over these 100 days. There were a total of 19 active regions.”His composite shows that sunspot activity is clustered in two narrow bands approximately 25 degrees north and south of the sun’s equator, respectively. This is typical of young solar cycles. As Solar Cycle 25 matures, the bands will converge toward the equator, and become more densely populated. By the time Solar Maximum arrives in 2025 (that’s the official NOAA prediction), 100-day composites should be very congested, indeed”.
(credit www.Spaceweather.com)
