“I am surprised that if it’s going to be big solar cycle 24, it’s taking this long for sunspots to get started.”
- David Hathaway, Ph.D., Solar Physics Team Leader,
NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
No sunspots on sun, August 28, 2008, and the sun has been going spotless for weeks at a time. The minimum of solar cycle 23 was 1996 and NASA says solar cycle 24 began on December 11, 2007 (see images below). Image courtesy SOHO.On left, is Extreme UV-wavelength image of the sun and on right, a B&W magnetogram showing positive (white) and negative (black) magnetic polarities. On December 11, 2007, this new high-latitude active solar region was magnetically reversed from sunspot magnetic directions in the previous Solar Cycle 23. So, this new sunspot officially marks the beginning of Solar Cycle 24. Images courtesy SOHO/NASA/ESA.
August 29, 2008 Huntsville, Alabama - On July 11, 2008, NASA headlined one of its press releases as, “What's Wrong with the Sun? (Nothing).” The featured scientist in the news release was solar physicist David Hathaway, Ph.D., Solar Physics Team Leader, NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Dr. Hathaway received his Ph.D. in Astrophysics from the University of Colorado - Boulder in 1979.
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