Experts believe that our sun has gone into a period of solar minimum or you can call it a sun lockdown. Solar minimum means that the number of activities on the surface on the sun has reduced drastically.
Scientists say that this could lead to famine, earthquakes, and freezing weather.
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Deepest period of sunshine recession
Sunspots have even virtually disappeared.
Astronomer Dr. Tony Phillips said: “Solar Minimum is underway and it’s a deep one.”
“Sunspot counts suggest it is one of the deepest of the past century. The sun’s magnetic field has become weak, allowing extra cosmic rays into the solar system.”
“Excess cosmic rays pose a health hazard to astronauts and polar air travelers, affect the electro-chemistry of Earth’s upper atmosphere and may help trigger lightning.”
NASA Scientists fear that this could be like the Dalton Minimum which happened between 1790 and 1830.
What is Dalton Minimum?
Dalton minimum, also called Modern minimum, a period of reduced sunspot activity that occurred between roughly 1790 and 1830. It was named for the English meteorologist and chemist John Dalton. Graph of average yearly sunspot numbers showing the 11-year solar cycle.
(Source: Britannica)
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What happen in Dalton Minimum during 1790-1830
Like the deeper Maunder and Spörer Minimums preceding it, the Dalton brought on a period of lower-than-average global temperatures.
The Oberlach Station in Germany, for example, experienced a 2C decline over 20 years, which devastated the country’s food production.
On April 10, 1815, the second-largest volcanic eruption in 2,000 years happened at Mount Tambora in Indonesia, killing at least 71,000 people.
It also led to the Year Without a Summer in 1816 — also nicknamed “eighteen hundred and froze to death” — when there was snow in July.
Scientists debate on the impact of a solar minimum
Some scientists argue that sun lockdown or solar minimum can lead to adverse weather conditions and earthquakes. Whereas, some others say that it has little impact on our Earth.
Scientists have linked the solar minimums of the past to huge drops in Earth’s temperature. One such solar minimum caused little ice age in the 1600s. Will it happen again? We don’t know for sure.
Valentina Zharkova, a professor of mathematics at Northumbria University said in a statement, ‘solar activity will fall by 60 percent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the ‘mini ice age’ that began in 1645.’
Meanwhile, Georg Feulner, the deputy chair of the Earth system analysis research domain at the Potsdam Institute on Climate Change Research said, ‘The expected decrease in global temperature would be 0.1 degrees Celsius at most, compared to about 1.3 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times by the year 2030.’
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We can see an increased number of cosmic rays
NASA has found one thing to be true for sure. During the sun lockdown period, there is an increased number of galactic cosmic rays that reach Earth’s upper atmosphere.
Galactic cosmic rays are high energy particles accelerated toward the solar system by distant supernova explosions and other violent events in the galaxy.
This is because the sun’s magnetic field weakens during a solar minimum period. These cosmic rays can be posed as a danger for astronauts in the space.
Meanwhile, humans on earth are still protected by the earth’s magnetic fields that shield us from the rays.
