Sunspots, the Colaninno Minimum, and Pascal's Wager
Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - 14:49
in Astronomy & Space
We have been in an anomalously long Solar Minimum. The sun has an 11 year cycle from Minimum to Maximum. But the cycles are (like most things in nature) not exact, and some are longer than the others. We are coming out of Solar Minimum... or are we? Even in the midst of our current cycle, solar physicists were predicting a long minimum, and, humorously, seemed evenly divided over whether this meant we would have a more active Maximum, or a far less active Maximum. For example, David Hathaway in the NASA article "Solar Cycle 25 peaking around 2022 could be one of the weakest in centuries" clearly predicts the latter. read more