• Question: has there been any explosions in the past year?

    Asked by anon-219143 to Emma on 21 Jun 2019.
    • Photo: Emma Davies

      Emma Davies answered on 21 Jun 2019:

      Yes we’ve had a few! But not many that have been directed towards Earth – the last explosions (CMEs) we saw were on the 3rd and 8th of June. All of the explosions so far have been rather weak – this is because the Sun is currently at ‘Solar Minimum’. The Sun goes through an 11 year cycle, going from quiet to active and back to quiet again. We’re currently in a particularly quiet patch! This means we expect only 1 explosion a week, but when the Sun is most active, we’d expect 3 to 5 a day!

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