Solar activity cycle influenced by changing magnetic fields
MAR 15, 2010
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.024158
Science News : From 2008 through the first half of 2009, the Sun had a puzzling dearth of sunspots , flares , and other storms , extending the usual lull at the end of the 11-year solar activity cycle for an extra 15 months.The reason why may be explained by David Hathaway of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, and Lisa Rightmire of the University of Memphis in Tennessee, who analyzed 13 years of measurements from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (also known as SOHO) that tracked the movement of ionized gas from the solar equator to the poles.The researchers found that the relatively slow gas movement, known as the meridional flow —the flow of material along meridian lines from the equator toward the poles at the surface and from the poles to the equator deep inside—sped up a few years before the last solar minimum began in 2008, weakening the Sun’s magnetic field at the poles and extending the solar minimum. Related Links Variations in the Sun’s meridional flow over a solar cycle Study peels back more of the magnetic Sun ScienceNow
© 2010 American Institute of Physics
