Astronomers: the Sun faces a steady decline in the activity
MOSCOW, 4 Jul — RIA Novosti. Monitor “cancelrename” shows that the level of magnetic activity within the Sun in recent years, decreased significantly and reached record low values, pointing to potentially irreversible changes in its mineral resources, according to a paper published in the journal MNRAS.
“The last peaks of solar activity was at a record low, and during the current cycle minimum was unusually long. Will be very interesting to watch, if the minimum of the next cycle will be the same as last time, or he will go back to normal. Even if this happens and this “calm” the Sun will be a one-time event, we will still be interesting to know why he had,” says Yvonne Ellsworth (Yvonne Elsworth) from the University of Birmingham (UK).
Solar activity is determined by the number of sunspots and solar flares associated with changes in the magnetic field of the star. The solar cycle from maximum to maximum lasts about 11 years. In the years of active Sun increase and frequent magnetic storms, which can cause technical problems and ailments people have, often observed auroras.
As the scientists explain, until recently, the Sun was in the phase of so-called “Grand solar maximum”, in which the activity of light was slightly higher than a multiyear average. However, the current 24-th cycle, which began in January 2008, was a record weak, and at one time, astronomers feared that the Orb falls into “hibernation”, but the resumption of its activity in 2015 partially dispelled these suspicions.
Ellsworth and her colleagues found the first evidence that inside the Sun can undergo fundamental changes in its magnetic field, generating spots and flare activity, studying data on “concetrate” that Birmingham Observatory BiSON were collected from 1985 to the present day.
During this period, as they say scientists, three cycles of solar activity changed each other, one of which, 22 were “normal”, and the last two is surprisingly weak. Watching as the acoustic wave generated by processes in the upper layers of the Sun spread through his bowels, scientists have tried to understand has changed is the nature of the work magnetic fields in the subsoil thereof and the manner of motion of the plasma flows that generate these fields.
As shown by these observations, in solar interior really is something incomprehensible, traces of which did not entirely disappear with the beginning of each new solar cycle. For example, images and data with BiSON show that the thickness of the layer, where the surface magnetic field, with each new cycle was decreased, which affected the behavior of spots on the surface of the disc.
In addition, the changed, moves the surface of the Sun — in the last two cycles of the rotation of the lights slowed down in its polar regions, located in the area of the parallel 60 North and South latitudes.
Why it happened, astronomers don’t know yet as to whether it will continue in the next cycle of activity, which will begin two years later, in 2019. Now the number of sunspots gradually decreases, and scientists expect that the number may again achieve a record low.
If the trends of the 24 cycle will be repeated, then, according to Ellsworth and her colleagues, it’s possible the offensive of a certain analogue Murderously minimum period of anomalous tranquility in the Sun in 1645-1715 years, the existence of which is associated with a long period of cold climate in the early modern period.