Most of us perceive time as an arrow, a one-way trip into the future. And while that’s true, nature has a way of interpolating circular patterns onto that linear model — day follows night, the seasons progress through the year, and generations are born, live, and die after creating the next generation to do experience the same cycles in the future.

Our star, too, follows this cyclical model, and goes through observable, periodic changes that are of keen interest to solar scientists. So it was with some fanfare that they recently announced that the sun had transitioned into Solar Cycle 25. But what exactly does that mean? Does the Sun’s changing face make much difference to the average person’s daily life? History shows that it can, so it pays to know what we’re in store for over the next couple of decades. Welcome to your primer on Solar Cycle 25.

Continue reading “Welcome To Solar Cycle 25; Our Sun Enters A New 11-Year Period” →