Spotless Sun: Blankest Year Of The Space Age
Monday, October 6, 2008 - 21:28
in Astronomy & Space
Astronomers who count sunspots have announced that 2008 is now the "blankest year" of the Space Age. An image taken on Sept. 27, 2008 by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) shows a solar disk completely unmarked by sunspots. For comparison, a SOHO image taken seven years earlier on Sept. 27, 2001, is peppered with colossal sunspots, all crackling with solar flares.