Happy news or sad ? :sunspots

Are Scientists of NASA blaming the sun for drop in the sunspots?


Scientists had reported last year that they observed no sunspots on 266 days (73%) of 366 saying that the solar cycle had hit the bottom in 2008.

But this is not the case as the same scientists have observed an unusually quiet time for the Sun with the sunspot counts for 2009 having dropped even lower. As on March 31, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%), NASA
said.

"We are experiencing a very deep solar minimum," said solar physicist Dean Pensell of the Goddard space Flight Centre of NASA.

Every 11 years or so, the sunspots (a region on the Sun's surface marked by intense magnetic activity) on the surface of the Sun die out during solar cycle minimum.

Meanwhile, Prof Mayank Vahia, senior astrophysicist of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
(TIFR) said that this is a golden opportunity for the scientists to study Sun in such a quiet phase.

The silent Sun may not have serious consequences on earthlings, he said.