Old, New, Cyclic, and Ultra-Blue: Visualizing the Last 400 Years of Solar Activity

Old, New, Cyclic, and Ultra-Blue: Visualizing the Last 400 Years of Solar Activity

Historic observations of sunspot variability have improved our understanding of the solar cycle tremendously, but recent reanalyses of these data has yielded a conflicted view on solar variability within the past few centuries. Today’s paper shows how we can both better visualize existing historic data and where we can go next in understanding the long-term variability of our closest star.

A 1500 Year Old Explosion (maybe)

A 1500 Year Old Explosion (maybe)

On 16th November in 483 CE, astronomers in China recorded the appearance of “a guest star east of Shen, as large as a peck measure, and like a fuzzy star”. The new celestial light shone brightly for just under a month, then faded to nothing. Over 1500 years later, the authors of today’s paper suggests that they may have found the source.