I do not think that the fat lady has sang on this one yet folks. According to the link that Reader provided that sun spot is larger than Jupiter right now. Who cares if the flare that might come out of it is destructive or not. That is not the point. The point is weather or not the crop formation is showing us a surge in solar activity that has not been seen for quite some time. It is up for debate, but it seems as though it has.
Out takes from the spaceweather.com article provided by Reader
Quote:
RESURGENT SUNSPOT: Yesterday, sunspot 1024 took the day off; the fast-growing active region stopped growing and even decayed a little. Today, the sunspot is growing again. It now measures 125,000 km from end to end, almost as wide as the planet Jupiter. This 3-day movie from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) shows recent developments...
By itself, this one active region won't bring an end to the deepest solar minimum in a century, but it does show that the sun's magnetic dynamo is still working--a fact some had begun to doubt. More sunspots are coming, so stay tuned.
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