Is a New Solar Cycle Beginning?

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Solar Cycle 23 is coming to an end. Whats next Image credit: NOAASpace Weather Prediction Center.
Solar Cycle 23 is coming to an end. What's next? Image credit: NOAA/Space Weather Prediction Center.

The solar physics community is abuzz this week. No, there haven't been any great eruptions or solar storms. The source of the excitement is a modest knot of magnetism that popped over the sun's eastern limb on Dec. 11th, pictured below in a pair of images from the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).


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All News summaries from Space & Earth science news
All News summaries for December 17, 2007

Melting Swiss glacier yields Neolithic trove, climate secrets

4 hours ago | User rating: not rated yet
Some 5,000 years ago a prehistoric person trod high up in what is now the Swiss Alps, wearing goat leather pants, leather shoes and armed with a bow and arrows.

China to launch space mission in late September

Sep 07, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
(AP) -- China will launch its third manned space mission in late September, featuring its first-ever space walk, a state news agency said.

Eat less meat to fight climate change: UN expert

Sep 07, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
People should cut their consumption of meat to help combat climate change, a top United Nations expert told a British Sunday newspaper.

Hurricane Ike ravages Caribbean islands as Hanna hits US

Sep 07, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
Hurricane Ike lashed the Turks and Caicos Islands early Sunday and threatened to unleash its fury on the Bahamas, Cuba and the US Gulf Coast, as Tropical Storm Hanna continued to batter the US East Coast. ...

High-resolution satellite launched in California

Sep 07, 2008 | User rating: not rated yet
(AP) -- A super-sharp Earth-imaging satellite that can detail an area the size of a baseball diamond's home plate from space has been launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base on the Central California ...