The “All Quiet Event”

The “All Quiet Event”

For the 4th day in a row, solar activity is extremely low. Compared to the beginning of July, when sunspots were abundant, the sun's global X-ray output has dropped by a factor of ten. Moreover, on July 17th the sunspot number fell all the way to zero. We call it "the All Quiet Event."

As July 19th unfolds, the sun is no longer completely blank. Three small sunspots are emerging, circled in this image from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory:

 

These small sunspots are not about to break the quiet. None of them has the kind of complex magnetic field that harbors energy for strong flares. NOAA forecasters estimate the odds of a significant flare (M- or X-class) in the next 24 hours to be no more than 1%.

Before July 17, 2014, the previous spotless day was August 14, 2011, a gap of nearly 3 years. What happened then provides context for what is happening now. Overall, 2011 was a year of relatively high solar activity with multiple X-flares; the spotless sun was just a temporary intermission. 2014 will probably be remembered the same way. Or not. Almost anything is possible because, as one pundit observes, "you just can't predict the sun."

 

From SpaceWeather.com