The Sun's almost perfectly round shape baffles scientists

(Phys.org) -- The sun is nearly the roundest object ever measured. If scaled to the size of a beach ball, it would be so round that the difference between the widest and narrow diameters would be much less than the width ...

What's down with the Sun? Major drop in solar activity predicted

(PhysOrg.com) -- A missing jet stream, fading spots, and slower activity near the poles say that our Sun is heading for a rest period even as it is acting up for the first time in years, according to scientists at the National ...

Solar cycle 25: The sun wakes up

The sun has entered its 25th solar cycle and is about to wake up. For the last few years our star has been pretty sleepy, with few sunspots, bright flares or massive ejections of magnetized plasma emanating from its surface. ...

Calm solar cycle prompts questions about impact on Earth

The surface of the sun has been surprisingly calm of late—with fewer sunspots than anytime in in the last century—prompting curious scientists to wonder just what it might mean here on Earth.

New Solar Cycle Prediction

(PhysOrg.com) -- An international panel of experts led by NOAA and sponsored by NASA has released a new prediction for the next solar cycle. Solar Cycle 24 will peak, they say, in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots.

Solar cycle primer

(PhysOrg.com) -- Telescopes spotted the first blemish on the sun in 1611. While the sun had long been thought—at least in the Western world—to be an unchanging, "perfect" orb, sky-watchers observed black sunspots ...

Researchers discover new clues to determining the solar cycle

Approximately every 11 years, the sun undergoes a complete personality change from quiet and calm to violently active. The height of the sun's activity, known as solar maximum, is a time of numerous sunspots, punctuated with ...

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