Solar Cycle

It was not until the first half of the 20th century that scientists began to understand what causes the sunspot cycle. Researchers determined that the sunspots were a magnetic phenomenon and that, indeed, the entire sun was magnetized with a north and a south magnetic pole just like a bar magnet. The comparison to a simple bar magnet ends there, however, as the sun's interior is constantly on the move. This cycle may peak in late 2013, or early 2014, and should reach a minimum around 2020, eventhough predictions about the sun's cycle are still quite uncertain. This has been the slowest sunspot cycle of the space age, which is the time frame during which we have the most detailed observations.