An extended period of low activity has been find on a nearby wiz , and astronomers trust it will aid excuse why the same thing sometimes bump to our Sun .
The Sun has an 11 year activeness cycle , with solar flares and sunspots currently in therising phase angle . It ’s been like that for at least 400 geezerhood , and almost certainly much farseeing – but from 1645 to 1715 , macula almost vanished , an era known as theMaunder Minimum .
Numerous people , withvarying levels of believability , havetried predictingthe timing of the next one . These efforts have had footling winner , largely because stargazer do n’t really have it away what do the Maunder Minimum ( nor the much poor Dalton lower limit ) , which is n’t all that surprising with such a circumscribed sample .
Two scholarly person at Penn State University and their executive program tried depend for twin on nearby stars . In theAstronomical Journalthey report success with one previously apart K - type star , HD 166620 .
“ There ’s a big debate about what the Maunder Minimum was , ” tell first author Anna Baum in astatement . “ Did the sun ’s magnetic field basically turn off ? Did it suffer its dynamo ? Or was it still cycling but at a very low level that did n’t produce many sunspot ? We ca n’t go back in clock time to take measure of what it was like , but if we can characterise the magnetic structure and magnetic field specialty of this mavin , we might come out to get some answer . ”
The writer examine the information for 59 stars , most with mass quite like to the Sun ’s , where between the Mount Wilson and Keck Observatories we have more than 50 years of observations .
Some stars shew no decipherable cycle , particularly those turn out too lento to create strong magnetic field or approaching the end of their aliveness . On the other hand , 29 showed strong rhythm of varying lengths . Among these , HD 166620 stood out , register a 17 class cycle from 1966 to around 2003 , and almost no starspots since . HD 166620 is among the oldest stars in the study , and 24 percent less massive than the Sun .
“ When we first see to it this data , we thought it must have been a mistake,”Dr Jacob Luhn , who worked on the labor as part of his PhDsaid . “ No matter how many time we checked , we always come to the conclusion that this star has simply stopped bike . ”
The answers could have far more contiguous implications for most people than the majority of astronomical puzzles .
Peaks in sunspots are associate with increasing Solar radiation . This has been show to bring forth a pocket-sized butdetectableimpact on globose temperatures .
Climate variety denier have attempted to use this to argue the current increase in worldwide heat is cause by increase activity on the Sun , rather than dodo fuel release on Earth . This has been rebut not only by the fact these changes are at least10 times too smallto produce the current thaw , but also because they are in the wrong direction – solar activitypeaked in the 1950sand has been on a slenderly downward track since .
The Maunder Minimum fall within theLittle Ice Age , when temperature dipped around the North Atlantic . When the Little Ice Age was conceive to be a global phenomenon it was widely attributed to reduced output from the Sun . More recently , grounds from other parts of the world has cast question on whether the planet as a whole really experienced much temperature drop curtain then , leave openthe question of how much effect the Maunder Minimum had .
HD 166620 could serve ameliorate our knowledge of the drivers of Earth ’s climate . It could also differentiate ushow much dangersatellites can anticipate to face in the near future from solar activity .
