Solar activity likely to peak next year sciencedaily.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sciencedaily.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Researchers at the Center of Excellence in Space Sciences India have tracked the activity of the Sun going back 10,000 years to find previously unknown secrets.
Image credit: (NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC)
Last year, scientists observed a curious phenomenon around the Sun: the star had become “unusually quiet” in comparison to its galactic siblings. We know stars as old as the Sun become inactive as they age, but it was never fully understood why, and how, this process unfolds.
A new study offers a theoretical underpinning to the mystery middle-aged stellar objects (almost 4.6 billion years old) tend to experience a “midlife crisis,” and this happens due to dramatic changes in their activity, linked to changes in the magnetic field and rotation rates.
Published in
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters on Wednesday, the theory is among the first to explain the unusual signs of weakened activity astronomers have noted for a while in middle-aged stellar systems. It also forms the foundation to understand how the stars may evolve long term.