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The sun is currently at the maximum of Solar Cycle 24, but as this graph shows, there are far fewer sunspots during this peak than there have been in past cycles. CREDIT: Hathaway/NASA/MSFC |
This year's solar maximum is shaping up to be the weakest in 100 years and the next one could be even more quiescent, scientists said Thursday (July 11).
"It's the smallest maximum we've seen in the Space Age," David Hathaway of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., told reporters in a teleconference. [Solar Max: Amazing Sun Storm Photos of 2013]