I'm John Bachelor with Bob Zimmerman, he keeps the website behind the black.

Eye on the Sun, the most important star in the whole cosmos according to mankind.

The sunspot update Bob does once a month and we follow the estimates of Noah's

for where we are in the cycle of solar minimum to solar maximum.

Last time I checked we're climbing towards the solar maximum.

But, Bob, solar maximum

maximum what does that represent do we know what it means scientifically

uh... yes and no as always you know they're always questions in the case of the sun

the sun uh... has a magnetic field and it flips its polarity

every 11 years. For some reason, positive goes to negative and negative goes to positive. The

polls become opposite polarity and it

does it every 11 years and in the process of doing that it's been doing this

since this is until early 1700s we've had 24 cycles every 11 years where it flipped its polarity since about 1700 and began

that they began to track this and the way we know it's doing this at least the

first initial guidance for this, is sunspots.

Because as the sun's magnetic field flips, during this 11-year cycle, the amount of sunspots goes up and down.

The activity increases and then decreases, so we get what we call the solar

cycle, the sunspots cycle. And so they track it and there is circumstantial evidence that this

so close, this sunspot cycle increases it.

When the sun is more active, the sun is a little warmer.

And it might actually affect the climate of the Earth.

So tracking is really important. Now we know it's linked

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