http://www.universetoday.com/2008/09/22 ... say-hello/
http://www.universetoday.com/2006/03/14 ... a-big-one/
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Eart ... 521738.cms
http://www.esaee.com/news/News/Space/374.html
Climax by 2011 or 2012...it will be the strongest in 50 years.
Do you hear that eerie music? Yellow_Flash_Colorz_PDT_08
http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthc ... un/sun.htm
Background
SUNSPOTS
Sunspots are intensely powerful magnetic vortices on the gaseous surface of the Sun. Highly polarized as are all magnetic phenomenon, Sunspots come in polar pairs equivalent to a North and South Pole. Since they are lower in temperature than the average surface of the Sun, they are easily seen through simple telescopes as dark marks on the Sun.
Typically seen near the sunspots are bright zones known as faculae (singular = facula), which means, generically, a bright spot. Line the sunspots, the faculae are the creation of magnet forces. But the faculae are so bright, they typically are "brighter" the "darkness" of the sunspots. Thus when sunspots are abundant, the faculae increase the average luminescence of the Sun Thus when the Sunspot Count is high during its peak phases, the Sun can be as much as 0.1% more luminescent than is normal.
SOLAR STORMS, FLARES, CME'S, AND PLASMOID WIND
Directly associated with sunspot activity, especially large groups of them, are often intense solar storms which can take the form of flares, huge volcanic-like explosions which are known as CME's (coronal mass ejections), shooting arcs known as prominences, and sudden fluctuations in the solar wind (plasma of protons and ions) which suddenly begin to flow out of "coronal holes" which form in the outer magnetic atmosphere of the Sun. All this activity tends to rise and fall closely in parallel with the Sunspot Count.
SUNSPOT NUMBERS
Until the advent of satellites and space probes, activity in the Sun was studied primary through the observation and count of what are called "sunspots". The count of sunspots has been known variously as the Wolf Number, the International Sunspot Number (ISSN), the relative sunspot number, or the Zürich Number). This number measures a composite score which measures both the number of sunspots and the groups of sunspots which are present on the surface of the Sun which can be observed from Earth.
The idea of recording and computing sunspot numbers was invented by Rudolf Wolf in 1849 in Zürich, Switzerland, which is why the number was long called the "Wolf Number". There are many sunspot observations which go back to the beginning of Century 16, but researchers have been able to tabulate a consistent Wolf Count only since 1750. This is now known as the ISSN count and the world center for maintaining this count for scientists is housed at the Royal Observatory of Belgium under an organization known as the SIDC:
