Solar cycle 25 is well underway, but you wouldn’t know we heading towards a solar maximum. For the last three weeks, we have had 10 spotless days after going 80 days in a row with sunspots. We are still early in this cycle but interesting to note that the sun is taking a break from its recent uptick.

 

 

Conditions on the sun has flatlined so to speak and because of this low activity, just today (August 14,2021), we have had three different regions with earthquakes as strong as 6.0 – 7.2 with several aftershocks of 4.7 and up in the South Sandwich Islands. Perryville ,Alaska recorded an early morning earthquake of a magnitude of  6.9 in the same region that had an 8.2 just several days ago. Finally, we had a 7.2 in Haiti in the early morning ( which is now reporting fatalities and damage) hours as well August 14th,2021. Solar Minimums and  or low solar activity has been linked to Earthquake activity and is proving itself as we speak.

Solar wind has also flatlined as we have no new coronal holes to bring higher speeds of solar wind to Earth’s magnetosphere. Things should be ramping up again but you wouldn’t know that by looking at the latest far side of the sun images.

As for now, we are seeing minimum conditions, not just by the lack of sunspots, but the SSN of each grouping is averaging between 11-14 …. That is the SSN of a sunspot grouping during a solar minimum. Also, cosmic rays are still up at 8.9%!! That number was between 9.1% – 11.5% during the heart of the minimum. We still have a long way to go, but so far, the predictions of a weak solar cycle 25, are holding true.

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