For the second time this month the solar disk is empty — no spots. This image of the Sun taken by the solar dynamics Observatory, NASA, June 23, shows “zero” dark cores.
Sun spots AR2553 and AR2556 disappear quickly, solar activity is very low. What does it mean? Solar cycle like a pendulum, swinging back and forth between periods of high and low sunspot number every 11 years. Today is empty the Sun is a sign that the pendulum has swung in the direction of low sunspot numbers. In other words, set the solar minimum. Earlier a few days from June 3, the disk of the sun was also “clean.”
But spotlessly clean as today’s Sun is only temporary. Beneath the visible surface, there are formed the knots of magnetism that will soon become visible and create new sunspots. The current solar cycle is not finished, but quickly weakens.
Space meteorologists expect the next solar minimum will occur in 2019-2020.
