Solar Cycle 25, An energetic awakening of the SUN in the current solar cycle Options

[bkellysky]

Using Stellarium to help identify the C3 SOHO background stars it is clear that VENUS (with Eta Virginis nearby) is the planet in C3’s field of view.

Thanks!

[titanicrivers]

Venus (V) and now Mercury (M) appear in SOHO C3 fov of 10-29-202. A possible, tiny sungrazer comet (sg) also is seen in image below.

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[titanicrivers]

A new paper describing the solar cycles of sunspot and surface magnetic field activity and observations of the Wilcox Solar Observatory using data from space observations of SOHO/MDI and SDO/HMI is presented here. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.338...022.923049/full

[titanicrivers]

Some year end data concerning Solar Cycle 25! Solar activity continues to exceed prediction levels https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression. Multiple observations including the decline in neutron counts reaching earth https://cosmicrays.oulu.fi/ are supportive. The latter suggests lower energy galactic cosmic rays are being downward modulated by enhanced solar activity including effects of CME’s reaching Earth.

[titanicrivers]

Latest sun spot data for Jan 2023 available here: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression. Also see comet 96P Machholz swing around the sun in the SOHO C3 fov. https://spaceweather.com/images2023/29jan23...comet_anim6.gif. Apparently some new observations on this unique comet during this pass are pending.

[titanicrivers]

Sunspot number and solar flux data for February continue to support a lively Solar Cycle 25 https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression

[titanicrivers]

This is a link https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.338...23.1050523/full to a compilation of 6 papers describing previous solar cycle observations and resulting predictions concerning Solar Cycle (SC) 25. Most recent observations continue to suggest CS25 will be much more energetic than predicted and that the peak of activity will be earlier (late 2023-mid 2024) than initially forecast.

[titanicrivers]

An interesting paper and experiment, https://www.mdpi.com/2075-1729/13/5/1103 was discussed in today's SpaceWeatherNews page. https://spaceweather.com/ . The experiment compares the production of amino acids in a simulated paleo Earth atmosphere by irradiation by a beam of high energy protons compared to spark discharges produced using a Tesla coil, a proxy for lightning, (the latter a variation on the famous Miller-Urey experiment of 1952). High energy protons produced by superflares (SEPs) were common in the young Sun's history, hence the proxy of a proton beam. Results showed the production of amino acids to be orders of magnitude greater using proton beam irradiation compared to spark discharges. The full paper is available in the first link above.

[titanicrivers]

There's a new ground-based, solar telescope in it's Operations Commissioning Phase, ​The U.S. National Science Foundation’s (NSF’s) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope. The telescope's description and a bevy of early images can be found here: https://nso.edu/press-release/new-images-re...olar-telescope/

[titanicrivers]

A warning to LEO satellites … the Thermosphere has heated up and risen to the highest altitude level in 20 years thanks to the energetic geomagnetic storms and solar flares of Solar Cycle 25, according to measurements from the SABER (Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Emission Radiometry) instrument on the TIMED (Thermosphere, Ionosphere, Mesosphere, Energetics and Dynamics) spacecraft and Martin Mlynczak of NASA’s Langley Research Center. An excellent description of the instrument and satellite and the index used to monitor the Thermosphere can be found here https://spaceweatherarchive.com/2022/03/23/what-is-tci/ and here https://spaceweather.com/

[titanicrivers]

June NOAA Solar Cycle Progression data continues to support a strong Cycle 25. Plotted data is presented here: https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression

[titanicrivers]

Data from NOAA Solar Cycle Progression continues to support a strong Cycle 25. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/solar-cycle-progression.

[titanicrivers]

OK, here's a figure from this paper https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/artic...2440?via%3Dihub showing a correlation between storms and clouds on Neptune and the solar cycles. The solar minimum in 2020 is especially noted for the lack of clouds on Neptune.

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[titanicrivers]

Additional observations using ground based telescopes is presented in this link https://w.astro.berkeley.edu/~imke/Infrared...Neptune2023.htm.

[titanicrivers]

Two items on the SpaceWeather page of (Oct 6 2023) https://spaceweather.com/archive.php?view=1...0&year=2023 are of interest concerning Solar Cycle 25. The magnetic poles of the Sun are rapidly disappearing based on measurements from the Solar Dynamic Observatory and may reverse before the year’s end. Magnetic flux from active regions of the Sun in 2022 and 2023 are weakening the Sun’s N and S polar field strength rapidly. Solar polar field reversals tend to occur at time of Solar Cycle maxima, suggesting an earlier than expected Cycle 25 peak.

Large farside sunspots continue to be observed by NASA's Mars Perseverance rover which images the sun daily to check the air for dust. https://spaceweather.com/images2023/06oct23/todaysimage.jpg shows the farside of the sunspots.