{"id":25886,"date":"2026-06-06T11:53:38","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T06:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=25886"},"modified":"2026-06-06T14:27:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T08:57:00","slug":"solar-cycle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/solar-cycle\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar Cycles"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Solar Cycle Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Researchers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) have used over 100 years of observations from the Kodaikanal solar observatory to investigate how large cellular structures known as supergranulations behave during different phases of the solar cycle.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Solar Cycle<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It describes an <\/span><b>approximately 11-year cycle of solar activity<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> driven by the <\/span><b>sun\u2019s magnetic field.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is indicated by the <\/span><b>frequency and intensity of sunspots visible<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> on the surface.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Every 11 years or so, the <\/span><b>Sun\u2019s magnetic field completely flips.<\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This means that the Sun\u2019s north and south poles switch places. Then it takes about another 11 years for the Sun\u2019s north and south poles to flip back again.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The solar cycle affects activity on the <\/span><b>surface of the Sun,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> such as sunspots, which are caused by the Sun\u2019s magnetic fields.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the magnetic fields change, so does the amount of activity on the Sun\u2019s surface.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It can be tracked by <\/span><b>counting the number of sunspots.<\/b><\/li>\n<li aria-level=\"1\"><b>Cycle Stages<\/b>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Solar minimum:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is the beginning of a solar cycle or when the Sun has the least sunspots.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Over time, solar activity\u2014and the number of sunspots\u2014increases.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><b>Solar maximum:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is the middle of the solar cycle or when the Sun has the most sunspots.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As the cycle ends, it fades back to the solar minimum, and then a new cycle begins.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Impact:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The solar cycle has the <\/span><b>potential to impact Earth\u2019s climatic conditions<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> through changes in solar radiation, cosmic rays, and ozone distribution.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>What is the Sun&#8217;s supergranulation?<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Sun&#8217;s supergranulation <\/span><b>refers to a physical pattern covering the surface<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> of the quiet Sun with a typical <\/span><b>horizontal scale of approximately 30,000 km<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and a <\/span><b>lifetime of around 1.8 d.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Supergranulation was <\/span><b>discovered by Hart<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (1954) using Doppler images of the Sun.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2269299&amp;reg=3&amp;lang=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PIB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Solar Cycles describes an approximately 11-year cycle of solar activity driven by the sun&#8217;s magnetic field. Read more about Solar Cycles, Cycle Stages, Impact, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":84926,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[5031],"class_list":{"0":"post-25886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-solar-cycles","9":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25886"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25886\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":107046,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25886\/revisions\/107046"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}