Solar Cycle 24 already started?
Just read an interesting article on Science@NASA. This article discusses the recent development on the sun and concludes with the question:
But when will Solar Cycle 24 begin?
“Maybe it already did–on July 31st,” says Hathaway. The first spot of a new solar cycle is always backwards. Solar physicists have long known that sunspot magnetic fields reverse polarity from cycle to cycle. N-S becomes S-N and vice versa. “The backward sunspot may be the first sunspot of Cycle 24.”
This is an interesting question… if yes, this looks promising for the future… but be careful. Don’t expect any big changes tomorrow 
but hopefully as they state on 1 or 2 years!
Even if Cycle 24 has truly begun, “don’t expect any great storms right away.” Solar cycles last 11 years and take time to build up to fever pitch. For a while, perhaps one or two years, Cycle 23 and Cycle 24 will actually share the sun, making it a hodgepodge of backward and forward spots. Eventually, Cycle 24 will take over completely; then the fireworks will really begin.
read more at Science@NASA.
[tags]ham radio, amateur radio, dx, contest, propagation, sun, solar[/tags]
