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<\/a>‘Sunspot numbers are well below their values from 2011, and strong solar flares have been infrequent,’ the space agency says. It observed just a few small sunspots on an otherwise clean face, which is usually riddled with many spots during peak solar activity. Experts have been baffled by the apparent lack of activity – with many wondering if NASA simply got it wrong. However, Solar physicist Dean Pesnell of NASA\u2019s Goddard Space Flight Center believes he has a different explanation. ‘This is solar maximum,’ he says. ‘But it looks different from what we expected because it is double-peaked.’ ‘The last two solar maxima, around 1989 and 2001, had not one but two peaks.’<\/p>\nSolar activity went up, dipped, then rose again, performing a mini-cycle that lasted about two years, he said.<\/p>\n
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The same thing could be happening now, as sunspot counts jumped in 2011 and dipped in 2012, he believes. Pesnell expects them to rebound in 2013: ‘I am comfortable in saying that another peak will happen in 2013 and possibly last into 2014.’ He spotted a similarity between Solar Cycle 24 and Solar Cycle 14, which had a double-peak during the first decade of the 20th century. If the two cycles are twins, ‘it would mean one peak in late 2013 and another in 2015’.<\/p>\n