For centuries, astronomers have measured the heartbeat of our Sun by counting its scars. Sunspots, massive solar flares, and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) have long been the traditional yardsticks for tracking the Sun’s roughly 11-year cycle of magnetic activity. When sunspot counts are low, the Sun is asleep; when they spike, it's wide awake.
By those traditional surface metrics, our current Solar Cycle 25 has looked somewhat average—perhaps even a bit subdued compared to the grand maxima of the late 20th century.
But a groundbreaking new study led by Professor Bill Chaplin at the University of Birmingham reveals that we’ve only been looking at the skin of a much deeper phenomenon. By essentially "listening" to the inside of the Sun, an international team of scientists has discovered that the Sun's magnetic engine is undergoing a long-term, structural reorganization.
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