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Is the Sun’s strange double-peaked solar maximum finally ending?

Last week NOAA posted its monthly update of the solar cycle, showing the sunspot activity for the Sun in April. As I do every month, I am posting it here, with annotations to give it context.

May Solar Cycle graph

The graph above has been modified to show the predictions of the solar science community. The green curves show the community’s two original predictions from April 2007, with half the scientists predicting a very strong maximum and half predicting a weak one. The red curve is their revised May 2009 prediction.

For the third month in a row the Sun continued its drop in sunspots, with the total finally slipping below the 2009 prediction for this moment in the solar cycle. If this decline continues through to solar minimum, the shape of the solar maximum will essentially have been established, double-peaked with the second peak stronger than the first, something that solar scientists have never seen before.

At the moment I await word from the scientists that the Sun has completed the flip of its magnetic field polarity in the southern hemisphere. This flip has already occurred in the northern hemisphere, and when the south follows, the maximum will be officially over and we will officiallybegin the ramp down to solar minimum.

Genesis cover

On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.

 
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.


The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
 

"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News

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