© Hathaway/NASA/MSFCProjected vs observed sunspot numbers for solar cycles #23 & #24.
By all rights, we should be in the throes of a solar maximum, an 11-year peak where the Sun is at its most active and dappled with sunspots.
Thus far though, Solar Cycle #24 has been off to a sputtering start, and researchers that attended the meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division earlier this month are divided as to why."Not only is this the smallest cycle we've seen in the space age, it's the smallest cycle in 100 years," NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center research scientist David Hathaway said during a recent press teleconference conducted by the Marshall Space Flight Center.
Cycle #23 gave way to a profound minimum that saw a spotless Sol on 260 out of 365 days (71%!) in 2009. Then, #Cycle 24 got off to a late start, about a full year overdue - we should have seen a solar maximum in 2012, and now that's on track for the late 2013 to early 2014 time frame. For solar observers, both amateur, professional and automated, its seems as if the Sun exhibits a "split-personality" this year, displaying its active Cycle #24-self one week, only to sink back into a blank despondency the next.
